• 


L/3RARV 


/7<r    /?/+ 


ZERUB   THROOP'S 


EXPERIMENT. 


MRS.    A.     D.    T.     AVIIITNEY, 

.  OF  "HITHEKTO,"  "PATIFXCF.  STKONO'S  OUTINCS,"  "TIIK  r.AVivoitTHTS,"  "FAITII 

CAIiT.NKV'S   CIKLIIOOD,"     "WE    GIKLS,"    ETC.,   ETC. 


O  H  T  N  G- ,     Publisher, 

COR.  BROMFIKLD  AND  WASHINGTON   STREETS, 
BOSTON. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1871,  by 

A  .    K  .    L  O  H  I  N  G  , 
In  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


Rockwell  &  Churchill,  Printers  and  Stereotype™, 


ZERUB  THROOP'S  EXPERIMENT. 


T. 


HOW  ZERUB  LEFT  IT  ALL  TO  PROVIDENCE. 

ZERUB  TIIROOP  sat  in  his  spring-lock  sanctum. 
It  was  a  contrivance  of  his,  whereby  it  might  never 
be  precisely  known  whether  he  was  out  or  in  ;  also, 
no  other  person,  curious  or  dishonest,  could  invade 
the  place  to  occupy  it  even  for  a  moment,  except 
with  door  carefully  set  wide.  lie  carried  the  key 
in  his  pocket.  Once  swung  to,  the  heavy  leaf  fast 
ened  itself  instantly;  then  he  and  his  cigar  and  his 
black  cat  were  walled  up  together.  Zerub  always 


4  ZERUB    THROOP  S  EXPERIMENT. 

kept  a  black  cat.  He  had  had  six  generations  of 
them,  all  precisely  alike.  Where  the  type  varied, 
the  kitten  was  drowned. 

A  staircase  led  down  from  the  passage  without  to 
the  side  entrance  of  his  house.  People  on  errands, 
or  with  bills,  or  to  pay  money,  or  receive  orders, 
came  here.  Zerub  could  see  from  his  window  whom 
it  might  be. 

He  had  an  office  directly  below,  where  he  made 
payments,  and  signed  receipts,  and  gave  such  other 
audiences  as  he  chose,. holding  thus  pretty  much  all 
his  limited  intercourse  with  his  kind.  Unless  he 
owed  a  man,  or  a  man  owed  him,  or  one  or  the  other 
wanted  for  money,  money's  worth  of  use,  property, 
or  service,  what  should  there  be  between  them? 
Zerub  Throop  always  wanted  to  know  that. 

He  had  a  little  dining-room  beyond  his  office. 
His  sleeping-room  was  within  his  sanctum.  What 


ZERU11    THROOI '  S   EXPERIMENT.  5 

if  he  should  die  there  some  night  with  his  oak 
sported? 

The  whole  front  of  his  large  old  house,  a  place 
he  had  taken  a  whim  to  buy  furnished  as  it  stood, 
was  unused. 

lie  had  his  head  out  at  his  window  at  this 
moment  at  which  we  take  him  up.  He  was  watch 
ing  a  woman  who  had  come  to  the  door  below  with 
something  to  sell.  She  had  come  from  a  good  way 
oil',  peddling  her  wares,  or  she  would  never  have 
climbed  Thro  op  Hill. 

"  Tell  the  mistress  it  will  be  sure  to  make  the 
hair  grow,  if  it's  gone  ever  so." 

"It  isn't  a  mistress,  it's  a  master,"  said  the 
servant  Sarah,  from  within.  "  And  he  don't  buy 
hair-grease;  and  he  won't  have  peddlers." 

"  It  isn't  grease ;  it's  Phoenix  Regenerator. 
It'll—" 

"It's  no   use,   I  tell  you.     Not  if  it  would  save 


6  ZEUUB    777 ROOT'S    EXPERIMENT. 

souls.  I  tell  you  he  don't  buy  things."  And  Sarah, 
bethinking  of  her  half-ironed  shirt-bosom,  and  her 
cooling  flats,  shut  the  door  summarily. 

Zerub  Throop  laughed.  The  woman  looked 
up. 

"  My  hair  never  comes  out,  madam,  I  assure 
you,"  said  he  with  a  mocking  blandncss,  and  a  half 
bow  of  his  thickly-covered,  close-trimmed,  grizzled 
head.  "I'm  not  in  the  habit  of  losing  things." 

"You  might,  though,"  she  answered,  as  ready  as 
he.  "You  might  begin ;  and  it's  things  that  never 

o  o       y  o 

went  before  that  goes  worst  if  they  once  sets  out. 
When  it  once  begins  to  drop,  you'll  —  " 

"  Hammer  it  in,  ma'am  !  and  rivet  it  on  the  other 
side.  Good-morning ; "  and  Zerub  shut  his  win 
dow. 

"  Hammer  it  in  !  I  guess  you're  used  to  hammer- 
in'  in;  feelin's  and  Christian  charities  and  such. 
Done  the  undertakin'  business  pretty  much  all 


ZERUB    THIiOOP  S   EXPERIMENT.  7 

along,  I  should  say.  Well,  wait  till  you're  ham 
mered  in,  and  riveted  on  the  other  side  ! :' 

As  she  walked  out  of  the  upper  gate  upon  the 
hill,  another  woman  rang  the  bell  at  the  front-door. 
The  sound  pealed  through  the  house  startlingly. 

Hardly  once  in  a  year  did  any  one  ring  at  Zerub 
Throop's  front-door.  One  had  to  turn  aside  from 
the  gravelled  drive  to  reach  it,  across  a  grass-plot. 
Old  vines,  little  trained  or  cared  for,  tangled  up  the 
porch-way;  but  Mrs.  Whapshare  came  to  the  front 
door.  She  had  been  ten  years  making  up  her  mind 
to  come  at  all,  —  ever  since  her  husband  died,  and 
left  her  poor.  Now  her  little  children  were  grow 
ing  up,  she  had  a  hundred  needs  for  them  to-day 
that  pressed  her  sorer  than  the  needs  of  ten  years 
a<ro.  They  mi^ht  go  out  into  the  world  to  make 

O  •>  O  O 

their  Ay  ay  ;  but  she  Avanted  life-tools  to  give  them  to 
go  out  Avith.     Training,  knowledge,  opportunity,— 
these  things,  in  the  outset,  must  ahvays  cost  some- 


8  ZERUB    THKOOP'S    EXFERIMKNT. 

body  something.  She  could  not  give  them  bread 
and  butter  now,  and  send  them  to  bed.  There  was 
other  feeding  that  they  were  hungry  for. 

Zerub  Throop  knew  Mrs.  Whapshare  by  sight, 
as  he  knew  nearly  every  man  and  woman  in  the 
town ;  but  lie  had  never  spoken  to  her.  Why 
should  he?  She  was  no  tenant  of  his.  He  wanted 
nothing  of  her  ;  she  could  buy  nothing  of  him.  The 
human  relation,  as  Zerub  understood  it,  failed. 
The  wires  were  down. 

Yet  Mrs.  Whapshare  came,  and  rung  at  his  front 
door. 

"There  is  a  lad}r,  sir,  in  the  north-east  room, 
askin'  to  speak  to  you,"  called  Sarah,  from  outside 
the  oak,  not  knocking,  for  she  knew  now  that  he 
was  there. 

"Why  didn't  you  get  rid  of  her,  as  you  did  of  the 
Regenerator?" — half  pleased,  half  surly,  at  her 
management;  first  good,  then  bad. 


ZKKUlt    THEOOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  9 

"  She  isn't  the  rogcneratiii'  sort.  She  uint  got 
bottles,  nor  yet  books,  nor  yet  forty  graphs  of 
President  Grant  and  Mr.  Bismarck  Brown.  There 
uint  nothin'  to  send  her  off  on.  She  jest  wants  to 
see  you.  1  can  tell  you  who  'tis.  It's  Mis'  Whap- 
share,  down  Ford  Street  way.  She  stepped  in  as 
if  she'd  made  up  her  mind  ;  and  it's  one  of  the  little 
ones  that  makes  up  Avith  a  twist." 

Sarah  Hand  was  almost  the  only  person  who  ever 
made  many  words  with  Zcrub  Throop ;  but  her 
words  suited  and  amused  him,  and  she  knew  it.  It 
Avas  with  a  sort  of  crusty  good-humor  that  he  went 
down  into  the  dim  and  musty  north-east  parlor, 
where  Sarah  had  folded  back  a  single  shutter,  to  see 
Mrs.  Whapshare. 

The  lady  rose  as  he  entered,  stirring  the  gloom 
and  must  of  the  corner  in  which  she  had  seated  her 
self,  and  gathering  up,  as  it  were,  the  darkness  into 


10  ZERUli    TFtROOP'S    EXPERIMENT. 

shape  with  the  shadowy  movement  of  her  black 
dress. 

Zerub  bowed. 

"Mrs.  Whapshare,"  said  the  lady,  —  "  Mrs.  Miles 
Whapshare." 

Zerub  sat  down,  and  waited  for  more. 

"  I  have  come  to  ask  you  something,  Mr. 
Throop." 

"Of  course,  madam.  They  all  do,"  answered 
Mr.  Throop  politely,  drawing  down  his  waistcoat, 
and  leaning  back  in  his  chair,  laying  his  right  foot 
across  his  left  knee,  and  folding  his  arms,  as  a 
human  being  in  a  state  of  siege  instinctively  barri 
cading  himself. 

Mrs.  Whapshare  looked  at  him  quickly.  She 
changed  her  tone  and  approach.  She  was  not  a 
timid  woman,  though  she  had  been  ten  years  mak 
ing  up  her  mind. 


ZERUR  TJIROOP'S  EXPERIMENT.  11 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,  I  began  wrong.  I 
mean,  I  came  to  tell  you  something." 

Mr.   Throop   bowed. 

"  You  owed  my  husband,  Miles  Whapsharc, 
fifteen  thousand  dollars." 

"Once  I  did,"  answered  Mr.  Throop. 

''Don't  yon  think — I  mean  /  do  think  —  you 
owe  his  children  something  now." 

"  In  this  country,  madam,  no  one  is  persecuted 
for  opinion's  sake.  You  have  a  perfect  right  to 
think  so,  —  and  —  to  continue  thinking  so." 

Mrs.  Whapshare  was  forced  back  to  her  ques 
tions.  "  Don't  you  think  so,  Mr.  Throop?  " 

"No,  madam.  I  am  quite  willing  to  answer  any 
inquiry  you  would  like  to  make.  I  do  not  think 
so." 

Mrs.  Whapshare  had  to  put  it  interrogatively 
again.  Otherwise,  it  was  plain  the  conversation 


12  ZERUB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

was  to  drop,  and  in  like  manner  would  perpetually 
drop. 

"Why,  sir?" 

"In  the  first  place,  madam,  three  and  twenty 
years  ago  Miles  Whapshare  hadn't  any  children. 
Whatever  responsibilities  he  undertook  afterward, 
he  undertook  in  the  face  of  his  business  loss.  He 
began  the  world  again,  as  I  did.  /  couldn't  afford 
children,  ma'am.  In  the  second  place,  I  paid  him, 
as  I  did  everybody  else,  twenty-five  cents  on  the 
dollar,  and  was  discharged.  I  began  again,  and 
worked  up.  If  Miles  Whapshare  didn't  work  up, 
that  is  simply  the  difference  between  us.  In  the 
third  place,  if  I  were  to  call  it  a  debt  now,  how 
much  do  you  think  the  debt  would  be  ?" 

"I  don't  know.  I  don't  know  as  that  alters 
it." 

"I'll  tell  you,  then.  Upon  fifteen  thousand 
dollars,  I  paid  Miles  Whapshare  three  thousand 


ZERUll    TfiROOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  13 

seven  hundred  and  fifty,  leaving  eleven  thousand 
two  hundred  and  fifty.  That,  at  simple  interest, 
would  by  this  time  just  about  have  increased  by  one 
and  a  half.  Do  you  think  I  owe  Miles  Whapshare's 
children  to-day  twenty-eight  thousand  one  hun 
dred  and  twenty-five  dollars?  It  is  either  that  or 
nothing." 

"I  think  it  is  likely  it  is  that,  then,"  replied  Mrs. 
TVhnpsharc,  with  a  calm  indifference  to  the  figures. 
"  But  they  would  be  glad  of  a  very  small  propor 
tion." 

''Possibly.  Miles  Whapshare  was.  But  you 
leave  the  argument.  The  grandchildren  might 
come  back  with  their  claim,  by  and  by.  The  world 
doesn't  go  trailing  on  after  that  fashion.  When 
things  are  squared  up,  they  are  squared.  There 
had  to  be  a  deluge,  once,  ma'am,  and  the  race  be 
gan  again.  •  Pope  Gregory  had  to  strike  ten  days 
out  of  the  vcar  1582,  to  bring  the  world's  account 


14  ZERUB    TJIROdP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

down  to  what  the  sun  could  pay;  and  I  believe  you 
think  your  sins  are  settled  for  on  much  the  same 
principle,  don't  you?"  Bankruptcy  and  discharge 
seem  to  be  taken  into  the  original  plan  of  things. 
At  any  rate,  that  is  what  occurs,  and  there  is  an 
accepted  order  for  it.  Is  this  all,  madam?  and  is 
your  mind  satisfied  ?  " 

And  Zerub  Throop  arose. 

The  woman's  figure  in  black  moved  again  also, 
making  that  shape  of  shadow  in  the  gloomy  sofa- 
corner.  A  voice  that  trembled  now  came  out  of 
the  shade. 

"It  seemed  to  me  as  if  it  ought  to  have  been, 
somehow ;  a  few  thousand  dollars  would  have  been 
so  much  to  us  all  this  time  !  and  I  knew  you  owed 
it  once.  You  are  rich,  Mr.  Throop  ;  and  you  have 
nobody  to  keep  your  money  for." 

"I  can  leave  it  to  cats  and  dogs  if  I  like.  I  can 
do  as  I  please  with  my  own." 


ZKRUD  THROOP^  S  EXPERIMENT.  15 

"You  may  think  you  can,"  said  the  widow, 
speaking  firmly  again  ;  "  but  it  will  be  as  Provi 
dence  pleases,  after  all.  Even  the  king's  heart  is 
in  the  hand  of  the  Lord." 

"  Very  well !  Try  Providence ;  but,  if  Provi 
dence  is  anything  like  Zerub  Throop,  it  won't  do  to 
begin  by  telling  him  he  owes  you  an  old  debt  on 
somebody's  else  account." 

"You  know  about  that  Mrs.  Whapshare?"  Mr. 
Throop  said,  interrogatively,  to  Sarah  Hand,  when 
she  was  bringing  in  his  dinner,  —  a  roasted  duck, 
with  port-wine  sauce.  "  She's  a  pretty  comfortable 
sort  of  person,  I  should  think." 

"Well,"  answered  Sarah,  "folks  is  most  alwers 
pretty  comfortable,  aint  they,  'xcept  the  regular 
give-up  starvation  ones  ?  You  see  'em  goin'  'round  ; 
and  they  has  shoes  an'  stockin's  on,  an'  gowns,  an' 
bunnits,  or  coats  and  hats  ;  an'  they  goes  in  some- 


16  ZERUB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

wheres  when  it  rains,  or  it  corncs  night ;  an'  they  git 
breakfast,  an'  dinner,  an'  supper,  I  s'pose,  or  else 
they  wouldn't  be  goiii'  'round.  You  don't  see  'em 
droppin'  nowheres.  Of  course,  they're  comfortable. 
Everybody  gets  shook  down  into  some  sort  of  a 
place.  The  world's  like  a  hoss-car;  they  git  in,  an' 
they  git  out ;  an'  they've  been  took  along  between. 
Some  sets  down,  and  some  stands  up,  and  sonie 
hangs  on  to  the  straps.  Some  gits  into  a  place  at 
the  beginning,  and  some  slips  into  one  when  some 
body  else  gits  out.  There  don't  seem  to  be  no  rule 
about  it ;  it  regilates  itself." 

"But  Mrs.  Whapshare?  —  she  lives  in  a  good 
house." 

"They  can't  eat  shingles  and  timbers,  though. 
'Taint  like  little  King  Boggins." 

"  She  has  a  roof  over  her  head,  however,  and  it 
is  her  own.  She  has  several  children." 

"More.     She's  got  six." 


ZERUH    THROOP1  S   EXPERIMENT.  17 

"  All  grown  up  ?  " 

"Well,  the  everidge  of  'em  is.  Charlotte,  she's 
eleven.  Miles  Whapshare  died  ten  years  ago,  and 
didn't  leave  much  of  anything  but  the  old  house  and 
the  mirdini*1  and  the  six  children  and  a  mess  of  old 

o  o 

store-books  full  of  bad  debts  and  tribulations." 

"Been  to  school?" 

"Children?  Yes  an'  meetin',  an'  Sunday  school, 
right  straight  along.  John,  he's  got  a  place  in  a 
store.  They're  nice  folks  enough.  Mis'  Whap 
share  aint  got  much  force  to  her,  though." 

"  I  should  think  she  had  done  pretty  well  under 
the  circumstances." 

"That's  just  it.  She's  a  woman  that's  always 
been  under  a  lot  of  'era,  —  clear  down.  What 
business  do  folks  have  to  be  under  the  circumstan 
ces,  I  wonder?  AVhy  don't  they  get  on  top  of  'em? 
What  is  circumstances  made  for?" 

"To   ftfa?id  round,   Sarah,"  said  Mr.   Throop,  in 


18  ZERUB    THROOP'S 

italics.  "If  you  knew.  Latin,  you'd  see.  That's 
what  we've  got  to  do  with  'em.  Keep  'em  in  their 
places.  Make  'em  stand  round  !  " 

"  Or  git,"  said  Sarah,  sententiously. 

Mr.  Throop  laughed. 

"  Bring  me  a  lemon,"  he  said  ;  and  Sarah,  having 
done  that,  understood  that  the  conversation  was  at 
an  end,  and  withdrew,  like  a  circumstance,  into  the 
kitchen. 

The  one  course  over,  Zerub  went,  as  was  his  cus 
tom,  upstairs  to  his  wine,  his  dessert,  and  his 
cigar.  He  never  ate  pastry.  A  little  fruit  was 
set  upon  the  round  table,  in  his  sanctum,  also  a 
basket  of  small  sweet  biscuits, — these  more  es 
pecially  for  the  benefit  of  the  cat,  to  whom  he  fed 
them ;  beside  these,  a  bottle  with  cap  of  tinfoil  over 
the  cork,  his  cigar-holder,  tray,  and  match-box. 
In  this  company,  Mr.  Throop  always  read  his  papers 
after  dinner  for  an  hour.  The  cat,  when  she  had 


ZERUD    TJIROOP'S    EXPERIMENT.  19 

got  biscuits  enough,  dozed  beside  him  on  a  soft 
square  sofa-cushion,  flung  down,  for  her  use,  upon 
the  floor.  Zcrub  pulled  her  ears  once  in  a  while, 
and  woke  her  up  to  tell  her  the  news,  and  what  he 
thought  about  it. 

"  She  knows,  and  she  don't  contradict,"  said  he. 

To-day,  he  did  not  read  long. 

"  They'll  get  into  a  nice  mc'ss  in  Europe ;  won't 
they,  Tophct?  They've  got  to,  sooner  or  later; 
that's  what  I  told  the  AYhapshare  woman.  The 
world's  never  safe  from  a  muddle  but  when  it's  just 
out  of  one  ;  and,  if  you  can't  be  safe  then  for  a 
while,  what's  the  use  of  the  muddle?  Hey,  old 
cat?" 

Tophct  rose  lazily,  stretched  out  her  fore  legs  to 
their  farthest  possible  extent,  stretched  up  her 
hind  ones,  lifting  her  back  into  a  heap,  and  drop 
ping  her  neck  into  a  hollow;  then  gathered  herself 


20  ZERUB    THROOP'S    EXPERIMENT. 

• 

together  again,  with  raised   and   vibrant  tail,    and 
rubbed  and  coiled  herself  round  her  master's  ankles. 

"I  wonder  how  it  would  seem  to  do  it,  old  cat? 
I  wonder  what  she  would  think  herself,  if  I  really 
did?  See  here,  now;  "  and  Mr.  Throop  drew  forth 
his  great  wallet,  and  therefrom  took  a  slip  of  white 
paper,  such  as  he  kept  ready  for  bills  and  receipts. 
He  dipped  a  pen  info  an  inkstand  that  stood  upon 
the  table,  and  wrote  four  lines. 

"  That  would  do  it." 

He  was  only  thinking  now,  not  soliloquizing. 
Mr.  Throop  never  did  that  foolish  thing ;  he  only 
talked  out  now  and  then,  in  scraps,  to  the  cat. 

He  sat  holding  that  which  he  had  from  a  queer 
impulse  written,  fancying  queer  what-ifs  about  it. 

"That  would  do  it.  Give  that  woman  this  slip  of 
paper,  and  it  turns  her  life  right  over  for  her, 
t'other  side  up  again, — the  side  she  hasn't  seen  for 


ZERUR    TIIROOP1  S   EXPERIMENT.  21 

ten,  twenty  years,  perhaps,  by  that  time,  no,  nor 
ever ;  and  it  alters  six  lives  after  hers. 

"I  don't -suppose  anybody  ever  wrote  exactly  such 
a  note  as  that ;  couldn't  bo  discounted.  It  would 
stand  c;ood,  though,  when  the  time  came.  Mrs. 

O  *  ~       7 

Whapshare,  two  things  arc  between  you  and  this 
slip  of  paper,  —  my  will,  and  my  life.  lean,  and 
I  can  not.  There  comes  in  free  agency,  and  all  the 
rest  of  it.  It  is  certain  that  I  either  shall  or  shall 
not  turn  this  freak  into  fact.  Certain  somewhere. 
Where?  In  time,  or  Providence?  Providence 
may  meddle  with  such  things ;  but  I  never  came 
across  Providence  amongst  'cm,  that's  all.  I've  had 
1113*  way  to  work  up  ;  and  I've  been  left  pretty  much 
to  myself;  and  I've  worked  it.  I'm  left  to  myself 
now.  Am  I  though?  How  do  I  know? 

"See  here,  what  if  I  do  neither?  What  if  I 
leave  it  to  Providence  to  finish  it,  if  it  will?" 

There  was  a  small  blank  in  one  of  the  four  lines. 


22  ZERUB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

Zerub  Tkroop  dipped  his  pen  again,  and  filled  the 
space  with  two  words.  He  turned  it  over,  and  in 
dorsed  it  with  a  date  and  a  sentence.  Then  he 
laid  down  the  pen,  and  sat  folding  and  rolling  the 
paper  abstractedly  several  minutes  until  he  held  it 
in  a  tight  round,  like  a  very  small  Catherine-wheel, 
between  his  finger  and  his  thumb . 

"  Would  it  ever  fire  off?  "  he  wondered. 

In  the  same  whimsical,  half-voluntary  way,  as  if 
letting  his  vagary,  that  he  might  stop  at  any  point, 
run  on  with  him,  he  tore  a  bit  of  tinfoil  from  the 
sheath  that  had  covered  his  bottle,  and  rolled  it 
again,  carefully  and  compactly,  in  that.  He  folded 
and  pressed  and  smoothed  the  foil  around  it,  and 
welded  it  into  a  silvery  ball. 

"Did  you  ever  see  a  secret,  Tophet?"  he  said  to 
the  cat.  "That's  a  secret.  That's  the  sort  of 
thing  it  is,  when  you  take  it  out  of  your  mind,  and 
look  at  it." 


ZERUB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  23 

Then  he  sat  holding  it  again,  amusing  himself  so, 
—  playing  passively,  as  it  were,  with  fate  and  possi 
bility,  —  others'  fate  that  he  thought  he  held  ;  first  in 
his  own  mind  and  will,  —  now  that  he  had  taken  it 
out,  and  looked  at  it,  between  his  thumb  and  finger. 

13ut  what  was  he  to  do  next,  or  not  to  do,  seeing 
he  had  given  it  up  to  Providence?  Providence 
would  neither  put  it  by,  out  of  his  thumb  and  fin 
ger,  nor  throw  it  away. 

"I  won't  destroy  the  thing,"  he  said.  "I'll  go  as 
far  as  that,  and  then  it  is  out  of  my  hands.  I'll 
leave  it  loose  on  creation.  Things  have  to  go  some 
where.  What  difference  will  it  make  to  me?" 

He  laid  it  out  of  his  fingers,  on  the  table,  —  any 
where,  as  it  happened  to  fall. 

"That's  all  between  you  and  me,  Tophet,"hc  said. 

"  Ni  —  ai  —  o  !  "  answered  the  cat. 

"And  —  the  post,  Tophet ;  you  and  me  and  the 
post.  What  do  people  mean  by  the  post?" 


24  ZERUB    TJIKOOP'S    EXPERIMENT. 

Then  he  took  his  hat  and  cane,  and  went  off  for 
his  afternoon  walk. 

Zerub  Throop  was  not  an  ill-souled  man ;  he  was 
only  a  strange,  solitary  one, — grown  selfish  and 
one-viewed  through  solitariness,  and  through 
having  "  worked  his  way  up." 

Sarah  Hand  came  upstairs,  found  the  door 
hooked  back  that  she  might  enter,  carried  off  the 
empty  bottle,  the  fruit-basket,  and  the  torn  bit  of 
tinfoil  that  was  evidently  rubbish,  beside  it.  She 
picked  up  the  round  bright  ball,  looked  at  it,  turned 
it  over,  saw  that  it  was  folded,  not  crumpled,  and 
laid  it  into  the  little  grooved  lid  at  the  top  of  Mr. 
Throop's  writing-desk,  to  keep  company  with  an  old 
knife,  a  bit  of  sealiug-wax,  some  used  pens,  and  a 
piece  of  India-rubber.  Sarah  Hand  never  "  cleared 
up"  anything  that  could  by  any  possibility  ever  be 
called  for  or  thought  of  again.  There  were  old 
bits  of  paper,  scribbled  with  temporary  calcula- 


ZERUn    THROOP'S    EXPERIMENT.  25 

tions,  tucked  between  the  leaves  of  his  blotting- 
book,  thrust  into  his  match-box,  and  clasped  among 
the  notes  and  scraps  in  his  little  gilt  finger-clip,  that 
had  been  dusted  over  and  replaced  for  month  after 
month,  even  year  after  year.  f. 

So,  when  Zcrub  came  home,  there  the  secret  lay, 
taken  care  of  by  Providence  and  Sarah  Hand.  There 
it  continued  to  lie  for  several  weeks ;  till,  one  clay, 
when  he  lifted  the  grooved  lid  to  find  something  that 
was  underneath,  the  silvery  ball  rolled  out  at  the 
end,  and  upon  the  table,  and  down  to  the  floor. 

Zerub  looked  at  it.  "  It's  out  of  my  keeping,"  said 
he  ;  "I've  nothing  to  do  with  it."  And  he  let  it  lie. 

Sarah  Hand  picked  it  up  when  she  swept  next 
day,,  and  dropped  it  into  the  bronze  match-box, 
where  it  fell  to  the  bottom,  among  some  stray  tacks 
and  screws  and  buttons  that  were  safe  there  from 
being  lost  or  wasted,  and  also  from  ever  being 
drafted  to  any  earthly  use. 


26  ZERUB    TJIROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

Zerub  did  not  ask  for  it,  or  look  for  it.  It  had 
fairly  got  beyond  his  knowledge  now,  as  when  one 
wilfully  loses  count  of  some  sound  or  motion  one 
has  pained  one's  self  involuntarily  in  following,  and 
is  thankful  to  Jet  go.  One  night,  months  after,  he 
upset  his  match-box  in  the  dark.  The  dust  that 
fell  from  it  got  brushed  up  in  the  morning,  the 
tacks  and  screws  and  buttons  put  back  again,  and 
nobody,  of  course,  thought  of  or  recollected  any 
thing  more ;  until,  that  same  afternoon,  sitting  with 
his  wine  and  his  paper  and  his  cigar,  Zerub  saw  the 
cat  claw  something  from  under  the  edge  of  the  low, 
broad  base  of  his  round  table,  give  it  a  pat,  to  try 
if  it  had  life  and  fun  in  it,  and  send  it  shining  across 
the  floor. 

"  Why,  that's  —  "  said  Zerub  ;  but  before  he  came 
to  the  exclamation-point  at  the  end  of  his  sentence, 
Tophet  was  after  it  again  ;  and  a  second  buffet  drove 
it  straight  before  his  eyes  to  the  one  possible  spot 


ZKRUE    THROOr's    EXPERIMENT.  27 

where  it  could  get  lost  out  of  that  room,  —  down 

the    open    lips    of    the    old-fashioned,  brass-valved 

it- 
register. 

"That's  all !  "  said  Zcrub,  with  a  deliberate  period. 
"  Nothing  is  lost  while  yon  know  where  it  is.  But 
it's  none  of  our  business;  is  it,  black  cat?" 

They  two  kneAV  ;  and  they  never  told. 

Afterwards,  Zcrub  Throop  lived  on  for  the  space 
of  two  years  and  five  months,  and  gathered  to  him 
self  his  interests  and  his  dividends,  and  smoked  his 
cigar  daily  after  his  dinner ;  but  he  never  spoke 
again  with  Miles  Whapshare's  widow,  or  put  her 
name  again  to  any  paper  that  he  wrote  or  caused  to 
be  written;  and  at  the  end  of  this  time,  suddenly, 
and  in  the  midst  of  his  strength,  he  turned  away 
from  all  these  things,  as  if  he  had  never  striven  for 
or  possessed  them,  and  went,  as  we  all  go,  to  "work 
his  way  "  up  farther. 


28  ZKtWJl    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 


II. 


HOW   IT    WAS   WITH   THE    WHAPSHARES. 

MRS.  WHAPSHARE  went  out  through  the  tangled 

porch,  and  heard  Mr.  Throop  draw  the  rusty  bolt 

» 
behind  her.     There  was  an  odd  blank  in  her  mind 

as  she  walked  down  the  hill  into  the  town  again,  as 
if  she  had  taken  some  hope  up  there  with  her  that 
she  had  been  long  used  to,  and  had  buried  it,  and 
was  coming  back  into  her  life  alone,  without  it. 

"It  had  been,  all  these  ten  years,  a  kind  of  vague 
assurance  to  her  to  see  Zerub  Throop  go  by,  up  and 
down  the  street,  and  to  think  to  herself,  "  That  man 
failed,  and  owed  my  husband  eleven  thousand 
dollars  that  he  could  not  pay.  He  has  got  it  now, 


mZERUB    THROOP'S    EXPERIMENT.  29 

and  plenty  more  ;  I've  a  great  will  to  go,  some  clay, 
and  remind  him  of  it." 

It  helped  her,  —  this  undefined  hope  and  half- 
intent,  —  almost  unconsciously,  through  many  a 
hard  pinch.  She  had  a  nut  that  she  might  yet 
crack,  as  they  do  in  fairy  talcs,  when  they  get  to 
the  worst;  and  who  knew  what  might  come  of  it? 
Anything,  everything,  might ;  and,  so  long  as  there 
is  a  "might"  in  one's  life,  one  can  go  on;  it  is  a 
reserve  in  the  army  of  one's  forces. 

This  morning  she  had  gone  and  cracked  her  nut ; 
and  there  had  come  out  of  it  black  ashes. 

She  looked  so  tired  when  she  came  in,  that 
Martha,  her  daughter,  did  not  tell  her  that  the  soup 
was  burned  ;  but  she  smelled  it,  coming  in  out  of  the 
fresh  air.  Burnt  "peas  are  pungent. 

"  There's  our  dinner  gone  !  "  said  she. 

"No,"  spoke  out  Caroline,  from  the  kitchen;  and 
she  opened,  with  a  gay  clatter,  the  oven  door. 


30  ZERUB  THROOP'S  EXPERIMENT. 

"Smell  my  potato  puff;  and  we've  an  omelet  just 
ready ;  and  you're  to  have  a  cup  of  tea,  with  a  table- 
spoonful  of  cream  that  I  got  off  the  bowl  for  you 
this  morning." 

That  was  Caroline  Whapshare's  way  with  things. 
Martha  took  them  harder. 

"I  think  the  soup  is  always  burned  for  us."  she' 
would    say.     "There's    a  wrong    somewhere,    that 
things  should  be  so." 

She  was  like  the  Jews,  who  asked,  "  Who  hath 
sinned,  this  man  or  his  parents  ? " 

Caroline  had  the  Christ-answer  ready. 

"Not  so  much  a  wrong,  may  be,  as  something 
to  be  set  gloriously  right.  How  good  it  will  be 
when  the  sun  breaks  out  in  the  west,  Mattie  !  " 

"Yes,  away  down;  just  a  strip  for  the  last 
minutes  under  the  clouds,  when  the  day  is  all 
<rone." 


ZKRUB    TUROOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  31 

"Even  then,  it  is  not  as  if  there  were  not  another 
coming." 

"  That  docs  not  help  the  Johnnie  feeling." 

Now,  when  John  Whapshare  had  been  a  little 
boy,  ho  had  given  the  household  this  compound 
substantive  and  a  proverb.  They  were  trying  to 
comfort  him,  for  a  childish  disappointment,  by  tell 
ing  him  of  the  good  time  he  was  to  have  next  week, 
at  Thanksgiving.  "Ye-e-s,"  he  persisted,  sobbing 
with  undiminished  vigor;  "  but  what  kind  of  a  time 
be  I  a-havin'  now?" 

Martha  thought  the  family  had  been  brought  up 
on  the  Johnnie  feeling. 

"Mother  has  lost  something,"  she  said  to  Caro 
line,  over  the  dinner  dishes,  that  day.  "  She  looks 
as  if  she  had  had  something  put  away,  and  had  gone 
to  get  it,  and  it  was  not  there." 

"What  queer  ideas  yon  have,  Mattie  !  " 

"Maybe.     1  feel  all  sharpened  up,  as  if  I  knew 


32  ZERUB    THROOP'S  EXPERIMENT. 

things  through  the  ends  of  my  fingers.  Queer 
ideas  come  of  queer  living.  What  are  we  going 
to  do  with  that  old  straw  matting  for  winter  ?  " 

"  It  was  rather  a  pity  in  the  beginning.  Children 
do  scrape  their  chairs  so  !  " 

"Well,  it's  the  end  uow ;  and  it  has  only  lasted  a 
year.  It  is  terribly  expensive  to  be  poor,  Car.  If 
we  had  had  a  good  ingrain  for  half  as  much  again, 
it  would  have  lasted  six  years." 

"I'll  tell  you  what  I  have  thought  of,"  said  Car. 
"  That  north-east  parlor,  —  we  cannot  do  much  with 
it  in  cold  weather.  What  is  the  use  of  having  a 
best  room  when  you  cannot  have  an  every-day  one  ? 
We  are  right  on  the  corner  of  the  street ;  we  might 
let  it  for  fifty  or  sixty  dollars  a  year ;  and  then  there 
would  be  the  carpet  and  all  the  things  to  spare. 
We  could  fill  up  with  them  splendidly  for  ever  so 
long." 

"  That  very  best  Brussels  carpet  ?  " 


ZKIlUli    TIIROOP'S    EXPERIMENT.  33 

"Well,  yes;  twenty-two  years  old,  is  it  not? 
Older  than  either  you  or  I,  Mattie ;  which  is  all  the 
reason  we  venerate  it  so.  It  was  the  best  when  we 
were  born  ;  and  we  were  never  allowed  to  have  any 
crumbs  over  it.  It  is  not  handsome." 

"  But  let  a  room?     Who  to,  or  what  for?  " 

"To  some  comfortable  old  maid;  or  for  an  office, 
or  a  shop,  or  anything.  Why  should  we  care?  I 
believe  I  shall  put  it  into  mother's  head." 

"How  we  should  miss  it  in  summer  !  —  our  only 
cool,  shady  place  !  " 

"  It  is  a  good  thing  to  let  things  go  when  you  do 
not  miss  them.  Then,  when  the  missing  time  comes 
round,  you  rub  along  somehow.  That's  the  way  for 
poor  folks  to  give.  I've  something  else  to  pro 
pound,  Mattie,  some  time;  and  I  don't  know 
whether  to  doit  all  in  a  heap,  or  to  wait  another  year. 
For  it  must  be  a  winter-strained  notion  too." 

"  I    think  when    you  arc    pretty    well    thumped 


34  ZERUB    TIIROOP'S    EXPERIMENT. 

•» 

already  is  the  time  to  take  another.  You  might  as 
well  keep  on  hammering." 

"We  might  —  sell  —  our  —  garden  —  for  fifteen 
hundred  dollars,  Martha  Whapshare.!  " 

The  first  few  words  came  slow  and  hard,  trying  their 
way  as  they  came,  Caroline's  eye  fixed  closely  upon 
Martha's  face.  The  last  all  ran  together  in  a  great 
hurry  and  triumph. 

"We  might -T- all  get  into  our — caskets!"  an 
swered  Martha,  with  a  sepulchral  indignation. 
"You  would  leave  us  just  about  room  enough." 

"Lydia  ought  to  have  those  organ  lessons  that 
she  wants  so  much,  and  an  organ  to  practise  on.  It 
would  be  a  profession  for  her." 

"  How  do  you  know  ?  " 

Caroline  opened  her  eyes  at  her  sister.  "Why, 
of  course  it  would.  Are  they  not  building  new 
churches  everywhere,  all  the  time?  and  are  not  all 
the  women  taking  to  preaching,  which  will  leave  a 


ZKRUR    THItOOP'S    EXPERIMENT.  35 

capital  chance  for  anybody  that  is  willing  just  to 
glorify  at  the  other  end,  without  being  seen  of 
men  ?  " 

"  Pshaw  !  I  don't  mean  that.  How  do  you  know 
about  the  garden  ?  " 

"I  asked  liufus  Abcll.  He  knows.  I  wouldn't 
go  at  mother,  and  stir  her  up  for  nothing,  you 
see." 

Martha  rubbed  the  cover  of  a  potato-dish  silently 
for  a  full  minute,  looking  at  nothing,  with  that 

f  O  O  ' 

"sctness"  in  her  features,  —  her  eyelids  fixed  at 
half-mast,  neither  lifting  nor  falling,  a  white  pinch 
in  the  end  of  her  nose,  and  the  corners  of  her  mouth 
crowded  down  with  the  close  shutting  of  her  small 
jaws,  —  as  if  her  indignation  at  life  were  held  in 
somewhere  behind  her  face,  as  a  smoker  takes  in 
and  holds  tobacco-smoke. 

"  She  held  her  breath,  and  the  mad  went  out  at 


36  ZEKUB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

her  ears,"  she  said  once  of  herself  when  she  was  a 
child. 

"I  think  it  is  a  very  prettily  managed  world," 
she  remarked  quietly,  when  she  had  put  the  dish- 
cover  down,  and  shaken  out  the  towel.  "  All 
Oregon  and  Alaska  empty  at  one  end,  and  people 
crowded  out  of  their  door-yards  at  the  other.  I'm 
going  to  talk  to  mother  about  it." 

While  "  the  mad  went  out  at  her  ears,"  Martha's 
mind  was  always  calmly  made  up  to  the  inevitable. 
Her  mother  had  lost  some  might,  could,  would,  or 
should,  to-day ;  she  had  seen  that ;  she  might  as  well 
piece  out  the  conditionals  for  her.  Martha  Whap- 
share  said  her  mother  lived  in  the  conditional 
mood. 

Caroline  knew  how  it  w^ould  be  beforehand  ;  it 
was  the  regular  circumlocution  of  things  in  the 
family.  She  had  the  ideas.  Martha  growled  at 
and  presented  them ;  Mrs.  Whapsharc  laid  them  up 


ZERUB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  37 

among  the  mights,  coulds,  woulds,  and  shoulds ; 
now  and  then  one  was  drawn  out  in  an  emergency, 
and  acted  upon. 

Rtifus  Abell  came,  aud  measured  the  garden- 
piece.  Itiifus  Abcll  was  surveyor,  real-estate  agent, 
broker,  lawyer,  executor,  what-not,  to  half  the 
people,  living  or  dead,  who  had,  or  had  had,  in 
terests  in  Eiutheroote. 

There  were  thirty-two  hundred  square  feet :  "  it 
would  sell,"  he  said,  "for  fifty  cents  a  foot;  that 
would  be  sixteen  hundred  dollars."  Mrs.  AYhap- 
share  went  to  bed  with  sixteen  hundred  dollars  in 
her  pocket  of  possibilities.  On  the  strength  of  that, 
they  had  sirloin-steak  for  dinner  the  next  day. 
That  did  all  the  family  good;  in  regular  turn,  it 
would  have  been  salt  fish,  —  ''One  of  the  make- 
believe  days,"  Martha  called  it;  when  the  dinner 
was  got  over,  and  no  one  dined.  They  made  be 
lieve,  at  regular  intervals,  with  salt  cod,  baked 


38  ZERUB    THROOP'S    EXPERIMENT. 

beans,  pea-soup,  and  liver.  That  left  three  days 
in  the  week  for  something  real, — two  at  first 
hand,  and  one  warmed  up. 

Mr.  Abell  also  put  a  notice  up  at  the  post-office, 
and  into  the  village  paper,  of  a  desirable  corner- 
room  to  let  in  a  dwelling-house,  in  a  central  locality, 
suitable  for  a  single  lady  or  a  professional  man ; 
apply  to  him. 

A  great  many  people  applied, — two  washer 
women  ;  a  horse-car  conductor  with  a  wife  and 
seven  children;  an  intelligence-office  keeper;  the 
teacher  of  a  boys'  private  school.  At  last  a  young 
doctor,  newly  come  to  the  neighborhood,  Arthur 
Plaice,  got  it ;  paid  twrenty  dollars  in  advance  for 
the  first  quarter,  twelve  of  which  Caroline  AVhap- 
share  took  to  the  city  the  next  day,  and  paid,  also 
in  advance,  for  the  same  length  of  time,  for  a  Mason 
and  Hamlin  organ.  This  came  out  on  the  same 


ZERUK    TJJItOOr's    EXPERIMENT.  30 

express-wagon  that  brought  Dr.  Plaice's  desk  and 
arm-chair  ami  book-shelves. 

They  got  acquainted  with  their  tenant  over  the 
unloading  and  bringing  in.  The  ladies  Whapshare 
had  been  rather  shy  of  him  before. 

lie  helped  the  express-man  bring  in  the  great 
box  into  their  sitting-room ;  then  he  stayed,  and 
unscrewed  it  for  them,  and  drew  the  instrument 
safely  out,  according  to  directions ;  then,  when 
they  opened  it,  and  wondered  how  it  would  sound, 
and  what  Lydia  would  say  when  she  came  home, 
he  put  a  chair  before  it,  and  seated  himself,  opened 
the  stops,  and  touched  the  ke}rs  with  a  few  beautiful 
glad  chords,  and  played  what  Caroline  always 

called  afterward,   the  "  Which   being   interpreted." 

• 
It  had  in  it  struggles  and  changes,  and  snatches  of 

comfort,  and  little  climbing-up-hill  notes,  and  sure 
high  ones,  and  droppings  and  sobbings  down  again ; 
yes,  and  "  the  very  little  pinches  too,  that  nobody 


40  ZERUB    TffROOP'S    EXPERIMENT. 

noticed  but  the  pinched  people ;  "  and  it  had  the 
great  reach  and  longing ;  and,  at  last,  a  grasp  and 
a  joy,  and  a  gentle  flood  of  bright  content,  that 
filled  the  room  and  all  their  hearts  as  they  listened, 
just  as  the  sunset  and  the  home  pleasantness  filled 
it,  and  glorified  its  new  aspect ;  with  the  best 
things  brought  in  for  every  day,  and  the  "  real 
Brussels,"  faded  though  it  might  be,  on  the  floor, 
and  the  organ  standing  in  the  shady  corner. 

The  old  maid,  Miss  Suprema  Sharpe,  lived  right 
opposite,  and  could  see,  over  her  blinds,  all  that 
occurred.  What  she  did  not  see,  she  heard ;  and, 
what  she  did  not  hear,  she  imagined  ;  and  what  she 
saw,  heard,  or  imagined,  of  a  morning,  for  exam 
ple,  she  ran  up  street,  of  an  afternoon,  and  told  to 
her  friend,  Mrs.  Benny  Dutell,  white  it  was  warm ; 
just  as  she  might  carry  ginger-cakes. 

She  was  not  a  bad  old  maid,  either;  that  is,  she 
did  not  mean  to  be.  She  only  lived  all  alone, 


ZKRUK    TnROOI''S    EXPERIMENT.  41 

and  there  did  not  much  happen  to  her.  Nine 
from  four  you  can't ;  so  you  borrow  ten.  Miss 
Suprema  went  borrowing  ten  all  along  the  line. 
She  got  things  mixed  up  sometimes/'and  her  sums 
wouldn't  prove. 

Mrs.  Benny  Dutcll  was  the  postmaster's  wife; 
what  came  to  her  never  grew  cool  in  her  hands ; 
so  that  you  had  your  own  story  passed  round  to 
you  again  presently,  or  even  beforehand ;  as  if  it 
had  got  ahead  of  the  sun  round  the  world,  —  by 
the  way  of  Upper  Five  Corners,  or  Lower  Green 
Point. 

Dr.  Plaice  had  hardly  gone  away  into  his  office, 
when  Miss  Suprema  came  "pcrpcndiculating" 
over.  She  walked  very  stiff  and  straight  and 
quick  ;  so  that  she  seemed  like  a  stick  shot  broad 
side,  instead  of  endwise,  keeping  its  uprightness 
as  it  went;  or  as  a  wiiter-spomt  or  a  sand-column, 
that  slides  tall  and  swift  from  horizon  to  horizon, 


42  ZERUB    TIIROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

without  a  motion  or  a  swaying,  save  detcrminately 
on. 

Nothing  prevented  Miss  Suprema  from  getting 
over  sooner,  and  meeting  Dr.  Plaice  there,  but  an 
"  enibarras  de  richesses."  She  stood  in  the  middle 
of  her  bedroom,  and  fairly  spun  when  she  saw  the 
furniture  going  in,  and  the  big  box,  marked  "  Cabi 
net  Organ,"  slid  over  the  threshold  along  a  board ; 
when  she  spied,  by  the  strong  western  light  shining 
in  level  through  the  room,  the  busy  group  about  it 
unpacking;  and  when  Dr.  Plaice  sat  down  and 
began  to  play.  Her  bonnet  was  in  the  closet ;  and 
she  would  have  to  turn  her  back,  and  disturb  her 
hearing,  to  fetch  it  and  put  it  on ;  besides,  if  she 
did, — which  wray?  She  was  in  a  hurry  to  get  to 
Mrs.  Benny's  before  the  sun  went  down  upon  her 
pheese ;  and  she  was  eager  to  gather  more  to  go 
with  to-morrow.  She  wanted  to  run  right  in  among 
the  Whapshares,  and  she  did  not  want  to  "  stop 


ZERUB    TfTROOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  43 

things;"  the  end  was,  that  she  came  in  upon  their 
comfortable  twilight  complacency,  waiting  for 
Lydia's  return  and  rapture. 

"Well,  I  declare  !     You  are  spread  out !  " 

Miss  Supremo-  looked  round  the  room  beamingly. 
She  looked  at  the  carpet,  and  the  gray  moreen 
curtains,  and  tho  marble-topped  pier-table ;  she  did 
not  mean  to  see  everything  all  at  once ;  she  let  the 
organ  wait  in  its  shady  corner. 

"Xo,  Miss  Suprcma,"  said  Caroline;  "not  spread 
out ;  only  drawn  in.  The  syrup  is  boiled  down, 
that  is  all. 

"To  a  richness?  Well,  how  elegant  you  do 
look !  You  won't  let  it  make  any  difference 
towards  me,  will  you  ;  but  I  may  run  in  neighborly 
just  the  same,  if  I  rub  my  feet  well?" 

Miss  Suprcma  had  quick  little  looks,  that  she 
sent  everywhere  out  of  her  round  brown  eyes  like  a 
squirrel's;  never  moving  her  body,  that  sat  straight 


44  ZERUB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

up  from  the  edge  of  her  chair,  but  only  her  head. 
Lydia  Whapshare  said  all  she  wanted  was  a  bushy 
tail,  and  a  nut  between  her  forepaws.  But,  to  do 
her  full  credit,  the  nut  was  seldom  lacking  meta 
phorically  ;  and  the  tale  was  bushy  enough  by  the 
time  she  ran  up  the  road  again  with  it,  along  under 
the  wall. 

With  her  swift,  continued  peeps,  she  was  the 
first  to  see  Dr.  Arthur  Plaice,  standing  again  in 
the  door-way  of  the  room  in  the  increasing  twi- 
light, 

"  Can  you  lend  me  a  hammer  for  a  moment, 
Mrs.  Whapshare?"  he  asked. 

And  while  Mrs.  Whapshare  went  for  the  ham 
mer,  Suprema  Sharpe  had  a  good  look  at  him,  with 
what  light  there  was  at  her  own  back,  and  full  in 
his  face. 

He  was  a  very  handsome  man,  she  saw  that,  with 
a  square,  firm  figure,  not  over  tall,  a  calm  equipoise 


znnuB  TIIROOF'S  EXPERIMENT.  45 

in  look  and  attitude,  and  all  the  indescribable 
bearing  of  a  gentleman,  that  shows  itself  whether 
he  stands  quietly  waiting,  or  moves  and  speaks. 

He  neither  came  into  the  room,  nor  withdrew 
oliyly,  but  simply  stood  where  the  last  natural  act 
left  him,  until  it  should  be  time  for  the  next. 
Self-consciousness,  which  is  neither  ladylike  nor 
gentlemanly,  always  has  to  do  something  between. 
Dr.  Plaice  could  make  a  pause.  When  Mrs. 
"Whapsharc  brought  him  the  hammer,  he  thanked 
her,  and  turned  away. 

"  So  that's  him  ?  "  said  Miss  Suprema. 

"That  is  Dr.  Plaice,"  replied  Mrs.  Whapshare. 

"Young,  isn't  he?  " 

"I  dare  say.     I  do  not  know  his  age." 

"Just  beginning.  Well,  you  won't  be  much 
knocked  up  nights  yet  a  while.  To  be  sure,  he's 
got  the  little  east  door  to  himself.  It'll  be  sociable 
evenings.  It's  a  good  plan  to  have  somebody  there. 


46  ZERUJi    TIJ HOOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

I  wonder  you  never  thought  of  it  before.  You 
didn't  really  want  that  room.  If  you  had  only 
made  up  your  mind  last  year,  there  was  little  Lot 
Green  looking  everywhere  for  a  place  to  put  up  his 
sign,  and  begin  turuin'  at  law.  You  wouldn't  have 
had  much  company  of  him,  though,  for  his  evenings 
were  spoken  for ;  and  it  wouldn't  have  been  perma 
nent,  because  he's  married  now,  and  keeping  house 
and  office  all  together.  I  guess  it  happened  right 
as  it  is." 

"We  had  only  just  come  through  to  the  bare 
floor  here,"  said  Martha,  bluntly;  "and  I  don't 
suppose  we  shall  have  much  to  do  with  Dr.  Plaice's 
evenings." 

"He's  right  in  the  house,  anyway;  and  there's 
always  hammers  and  things ;  you'll  get  acquainted. 
Well,  I  must  go.  I  only  looked  in  for  a  minute. 
I'll  come  again.  If  anything  should  happen  that 
I  shouldn't  be  able  to  come,  you  know,  why,  there's 


ZERUB    TflROOP'f!    EXPERIMENT.  47 

the  doctor ;  and  one  of  my  little  quinsies  might  be 
an  encouragement  to  him." 

She  fairly  forgot  the  organ,  after  all. 

She  stood  on  the  sidewalk  for  a  moment,  when 
she  had  got  out,  with  a  flapping  in  her  mind  that 
she  was  subject  to,  like  a  sail  in  a  flaw  of  wind. 
She  trimmed  her  decisions,  however,  quickly,  and 
laid  her  course  direct  for  Mrs.  Dutcll's. 

She  must  go,  sundown  or  not.  She  had  a  little 
joke  on  the  tip  of  her  tongue  that  tingled.  Keep  it 
over  night?  She  might  as  w'cll  have  tried  to  keep 
a  Spanish  fly  there. 

She  was  in  too  much  of  a  hurry  with  it,  though, 
when  she  reached  Mrs.  Benny's. 

"It's  easy  enough  to  guess  now  what  will  to/tC 
Plaice!"  she  cried  right  out,  without  preface. 

"La!  what?"  said  Mrs.  Benny  Dutoll. 

Then  Miss  Suprcma  saw  that  she  had  begun  at 
the  wrong  end  of  her  little  joke,  and  spoiled  it.  I 


48  ZERUB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

am  viciously  glad  she  did.  I  am  glad  she  found 
out  once  in  a  while,  in  her  own  small  way,  which 
was  all  the  way  she  could,  how  good  it  is  to  have 
things  tipped  out  in  a  hurry,  wrong  end  foremost. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  gossip,  —  the  one  that 
purely  invents  or  recklessly  misrepresents  ;  and  the 
one  that  shrewdly  spies,  puts  this  and  that  together, 
guesses,  and  anticipates;  and  the  latter  is  inde 
scribably  the  most  aggravating.  It  was  Miss 
Suprema's  sort. 

You  can  sit  in  your  own  room  complacently, 
with  a  three  weeks'  influenza,  and  be  told  from  out 
side  that  you  have  got  the  varioloid,  or  a  softening 
of  the  brain  ;  or  that  you  have  quarrelled  with  your 
wife  or  husband,  and  run  away.  All  that  will  right 
itself;  but  to  be  informed  that  you  are  about  to  give 
out  invitations  to  a  party,  or  publish  a  book,  or  go 
to  Europe,  when  you  can't  say  you  haven't  it  in 
your  mind,  or  to  be  "speered  at "  in  regard  to  an 


ZKRUB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  49 

impending  engagement  in  your  family,  which  you 
can  neither  declare  nor  deny,  —  to  be  told  your  own 
news  before  it  is  news,  — I  wonder  if  that  was  not 
the  devil's  fine  art  in  torturing  Job?  His  friends 
came  to  tell  him  of  all  these  things,  which  was  all 
they  were  left  alive  for.  I  think  he  must  have 
wished  they  had  not  been  left  alive,  and  that  he 
could  have  found  the  things  out  quietly  in  time  for 
himself. 

This  looking  over  shoulders  spiritually  into  the 
page  of  a  life  that  is  barely  being  written,  this  pick 
ing  pockets  of  personal  experience,  is  the  mean 
enormity  of  which  the  literal  prying  into  private  let 
ters  or  stealing  portc-monnaics  are  only  feeble 
types.  Yet  the  social  pickpockets  run  about  safely 
and  respectably,  spending  their  stolen  change,  and 
there  is  no  House  of  Correction  for  them. 

Arthur  Plaice  had  not  got  his  clothes  hung  up  in 
his  closet,  or  his  books  put  up  on  their  shelves,  be- 


50  ZERUD  Tnnoop's  EXPERIMENT. 

fore  all  that  might  happen,  —  well,  all  that  did  hap 
pen,  for  what  is  the  use  of  trying  to  keep  the  story 
back  after  a  Miss  Suprenia  has  seized  hold  of  it?  — 
was  an  "  I  told  you  so  !  "  in  Rintheroote. 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  very  ordinary  men 
are  influenced  by  this  social  force  which  is  brought 
to  bear  upon  their  doings  (doings,  I  mean,  which 
tend,  or  may  drift,  matrimonially),  and  of  which 
they  usually  become  aware  before  the  women  do. 
It  either  frightens  them  oif,  or  frightens  them  on. 
Arthur  Plaice  showed  his  manhood  in  that  it  did 
neither  with  him. 

He  was  probably  well  aware  that  all  Rintheroote 
was  peeping  and  noticing,  guessing  and  prophe 
sying;  yet  he  went  in  and  out  just  the  same,  coining 
into  easy  and  natural  contact  with  the  Whapshare 
family,  living  along  precisely  as  if  his  life  had  been 
let  alone. 

Caroline,  the  pretty  one,  and  the    obvious  one,  of 


ZERU11    TllROOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  51 

the  Whapsharc  girls,  shielded  by  this  simple  "grit," 
as  Robert  Collycr  would  call  it,  of  the  young  doctor, 
from  the  shame  and  harassment  that  many  a  deli 
cate  girl  docs  have  to  go  through, — that  I  have 
seen  delicate  girls  suffer  from,  —  of  knowing  that 
a  thing  has  been  surmised  impertinently,  and  that  lie 
has  heard  it,  and  is  shy  or  coo'  in  consequence, — 
Caroline  Whapsharc  went  on  innocently  and  quietly, 
and  kept  her  little  school  upstairs. 

There  was  nothing  said  about  the  school  before  ? 
No  ;  because  we  came  in  at  the  Whapshares]'  out  of 
school-hours,  at  dinner-time,  when  the  pea-soup  was 
burning ;  and  in  the  afternoons  the  little  children  did 
not  come. 

Caroline  Whapshare  had  not  served  an  apprentice 
ship  to  any  system.  She  had  never  been  inside  a 
kindergarten ;  but  she  had  a  garden  for  little  chil 
dren  in  her  heart,  as  every  woman  has  who  is  born 

\ 
with  the  genius    of  motherhood  in  her,  —  a  place 


52  ZERUB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

full  of  blessed  waiting  growths  and  living  images 
of  truth,  vital  and  simple  with  the  child-instinct  hi 
them,  —  that  has  never  died  out  of  her,  but  flowers 
forth  in  its  heavenly  use  when  the  children  come,  as 
it  was  ordained. 

She  was  full  of  little,  bright  teaching  thoughts. 
Things  came  to  he]  in  clear,  happy,  object-fashion. 
She  delighted  to  ted  them  again  to  little,  growing 
souls,  or  even  to  think  how  she  might  do  it.  She 
felt  always,  going  through  the  pleasant  mind-and- 
spirit  places,  just  as  she  did  once  in  riding  through 
a  beautiful  country,  full  of  farm  cheeriness  and 
woodland  beauty,  and,  far  away,  uuhaunted  nooks 
and  seclusions,  "Oh,  what  lovely  places  to  be  a 
little  child  in  !  " 

So  she  brought  out  of  all  her  school  knowledge 
and  her  later  readings,  fresh,  charming  applications. 
There  was  nothing  old  and  trite  with  her;  nothing 
that  only  letters  and  syllables  stood  for.  The  ob- 


ZERUB    THJROOP'S    EXPERIMENT.  53 

ject,  the  very  thing  itself  taught  of,  was  palpable  to 
her  imagination ;  and  she  made  it  palpable  to  the 
child,  in  words  quick  from  the  live  sense  in  herself, 
or  in  some  quaint,  clever,  bewitching  little  impro 
vised  play.  She  kept  a  kindergarten  without 
knowing  it,  or  setting  it  up  to  bo  such. 

Martha  could  not  keep  school ;  she  should  not 
have  the  patience,  she  said.  She  did  the  Martha- 
work,  and  was  cumbered,  and  sometimes  cross,  poor 
girl !  with  much  sewing. 

There  were  times  in  that  square  upper  south 
chamber,  where  the  sun  came  in  on  the  bare  floor, 
and  where  three  benches  and  three  little  rows  of 
desks  formed  three  sides  of  a  quadrangle,  and  the 
fireplace  was  the  fourth,  with  the  teacher's  table  in 
the  corner  between  it  and  the  window,  —  times  that 
those  little  souls  will  never  forget  for  their  early 
blessedness ;  times  of  reciting  that  were  like  play, 
and  play-times  that  were  like —  oh  !  what  were  they 


54  ZERUD  Tnnoop's  EXPERIMENT. 

like?  when  they  went  "round  the  barberry-bush," 
or  "  hunted  the  squirrel  through  the  wood,  and  lost 
him  and  found  him ;  "  or  sang  "  Chickany,  chickany, 
craney  crow,"  and  ran  from  the  fox  that  was  after 
the  brood  of  them.  Why,  those  four  plain  walls, 
and  that  bare  floor,  and  the  three  little  low  benches 
that  they  jumped  over  for  safety,  wrere  to  them  all 
wild  and  beautiful  nature,  full  of  fables  and  fairy 
tales  that  they  were  playing  out.  And  Caroline 
"vVhapshare  was  just  as  young  and  as  pleased,  and  as 
full  of  "  make-believe  "  and  "  certain-true  "  as  any  of 
them. 

I  think  it  was  the  little  school,  as  much  as  any 
thing,  that  Arthur  Plaice  fell  in  love  with. 

All  winter  long  the  little  feet,  trudging  up  and 
down  the  long  back  stairs,  and  the  little  voices, 
shrill  and  sweet  and  happy,  sounded  into  his  heart, 
and  told  tales  there ;  and  all  winter  long  the  sight 
of  Caroline  Whapshare's  face,  fair  and  sunshiny, 


ZERVB    TH HOOP'S    EXPERIMENT.  55 

grew  to  l)e  to  him  a  daily  bread  of  blessing  that  his 
life  had  waited  for. 

lie  did  spend  many  an  evening  in  the  cosey  home 
room,  where  they  were  "having  the  good  of  their 
best  things;"  he  helped  Charlotte  with  her  sums, 
and  ho  mended  Miles's  skates ;  he  went  off  skating 
with  them  all,  boys  and  girls,  up  the  shining  river, 
in  the  still,  keen  moonlight ;  he  brought  home  nuts 
sometimes,  and  cracked  and  picked  them,  and 
Martha  made  pan-candy;  he  read  aloud  lovely 
stories,  and  books  of  curious  fact,  Avhilc  the  sewing- 
baskets  were  out  and  the  needles  were  busy ;  he 
showed  John  how  to  carve  brackets  and  boxes  ;  he 
played  for  them  upon  the  organ;  and,  on  Sunday 
evenings,  they  all  sang  together  glorious  and  tender 

O  «'  O  O  O 

hymns,  or  listened  while  he  drew  forth  from  the 
stops  and  keys  the  grand,  beautiful  meanings  of 
Handel  and  Beethoven. 

He  brought   into  the  house  a  wealth  of  resource 


56  ZERUB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

and  companionship ;  and  in  return  he  received  — 
home.  He  had  not  had  a  home  before  for  fifteen 
years ;  there  had  only  been  for  him  school  and 
college,  and  the  world. 

Why  could  not  people  let  them  all  alone,  to  take 
what  God  was  giving,  and  to  make  their  simple 
history  ? 

All  the  while,  the  vulgar,  hurrying  gossip  was  go 
ing  about,  robbing  the  sweet,  unconscious  time  that 
lives  have  a  right  to  before  they  find  out  their  own 
whole  secrets ;  interfering,  concluding,  spoiling. 
For  while  Caroline  knew  nothing  of  it,  because  they 
guarded  her  so,  and  because  she  had  that  kind  of 
dignity  that  silly  impertinence  could  never  approach 
directly,  Arthur  Plaice  and  her  mother  each  came 
to  know  it  separately  quite  well ;  and  each  felt  at 
last  uncomfortably  responsible. 

Dr.  Plaice  was  not  scared  nor  small  about  it.  He 
had  no  little  pitiful,  provoked  corner  in  his  mind, 


ZKRUB    THKOOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  57 

ever  so  far  back,  in  which  he  visited  upon  Caroline 
Whapshare  the  annoyance  he  certainly  did  feel. 
Her  face  was  just  as  dear  and  sunshiny  to  him  as 
ever;  and  he  let  her  see  just  as  plainly  the  re 
flected  shine  in  his.  But  he  knew  that  he  had  a 
lonui;  waiting-time  before  him  in  his  life  ;  and  he  had 

O  O  ' 

a  conscience ;  these  two  things  made  a  differ 
ence. 

He  began  to  be  busy  in  his  office,  or  to  be  called 
away  now  and  then,  more  frequently  than  he  had  used. 
Mrs.  Whapshare  had  ripping,  untidy,  or  bulky 
work  upstairs  sometimes,  and  carried  off  the  large 
kerosene  lamp  from  below  to  do  it  by ;  and  where 
mother  was,  there  was  always  the  household.  Even 
Miss  Suprema  could  sec  that  they  were  not  always 
now  "lit  up  and  waiting"  in  the  curtained  room. 
Lydia  had  a  candle,  and  practised  all  alone,  often; 
that  was  dull.  It  was  all  duller  than  it  had  been ; 
they  hardly  knew  when  it  began  to  change,  but  the 


58  ZERUB    TflROOP'S    EXPERIMENT. 

winter  grew  a  great  deal  wearier  toward  the 
end. 

It  made  no  difference ;  they  could  not  defend 
themselves ;  gossip  would  have  something.  Dr . 
Plaice  was  "  cooling  off "  now ;  the  Whapshares  had 
"  taken  hold  rather  too  strong  ;  "  "  all  the  time  never 
held  out ;  "  "  it  would  do  Dr.  Plaice  more  good,  as  a 
young  physician,  to  go  about  and  become  acquainted 
generally."  "And  what  could  it  amount  to? 
Neither  of  them  had  anything."  "It  was  strange  a 
woman  of  Mrs.  Whapshare's  experience  hadn't  had 
more  judgment." 

Some  of  these  things  crept  round  at  last  to 
Martha's  knowledge.  They  made  her  harder  and 
sharper  than  ever.  She  said  nothing  about  them ; 
but  she  was  brusque,  even  rude,  now  and  then,  to 
Arthur  Plaice ;  she  was  abrupt  with  her  mother, 
and  with  Caroline  she  was  like  a  thorn-hedge,  bris- 


ZKRUfi    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  59 

tling  and  thrusting  sharp  points  at  her  continually, 
by  way  of  sheltering  her  in. 

Yet,  as  Suprcma  Sharp  herself  had  said,  he  was 
''  there  right  in  the  house  ;  and  there  were  always 
hammers  and  things."  Some  pleasant  hours  were 
natural,  inevitable  ;  he  could  not  always  be  denvincr 

•/  <J          O 

himself;  neither  could  even  Marfha  be  always  on 
guard  against  what  there  might  be  no  real  danger 
of,  and  at  any  rate  was  nobody's  business. 

The  days  lengthened,  and  the  spring  came  round. 
Mrs.  Whapshare  had  taken  Rufus  Abell's  advice, 
and,  instead  of  selling  her  garden  lot,  had  given 
him  a  two-years'  mortgage  upon  the  whole  place, 
for  which  he  had  lent  her  the  sixteen  hundred  dol 
lars.  At  the  end  of  that  time,  he  told  her,  if  things 
were  not  easier  for  her  somehow,  she  could  sell  at 
an  advanced  value,  pay  up  the  mortgage,  and  have 
something  left.  Meanwhile,  as  Mrs.  Whapshare 
said,  the  children  would  have  two  years  more  of 
breathing-time  before  she  walled  them  in. 


60  ZERVB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 


III. 


HOW   THE    COMET   TOLD   TALES,    AND   SET    THE    SOLAR 
SYSTEM   IN   COMMOTION. 

THE  houses  on  the  east,  or  rather  south-east  side 
of  Ford  Street  opened  by  their  front  and  back  doors 
into  two  different  worlds,  as  the  lives  of  men  also  do. 

One  way,  there  was  -the  dusty,  glaring  high-road, 
with  the  street-cars  running  up  to  the  corner ;  the 
bank,  the  post-office,  the  shops,  the  town-pump,  and 
the  hay-scales,  all  in  sight,  and  constituting  what 
New  England  people  call  "  the  prospect." 

The  other  way,  there  was  green  grass,  a  sloping 
bank,  the  shade  of  trees  and  wild  shrubs,  secret 
stillness  and  beauty;  and  the  broad,  slow  river 
widened  out  above  the  dams. 


ZERUU  Tnnoop's  EXPERIMENT.  Gl 

Nobody  would  have  thought  it,  going  l>y  along 
the  front.  Nobody  would  have  thought,  that  be 
hind  the  commonplace  village,  with  its  houses 
crowding  right  on  to  the  thoroughfare,  was  this 
escape  into  a  hidden  and  wonderful  delight.  People 
did  not  remember  it,  although  they  knew,  who 
lived  on  the  other  side,  and  had  close  back-yards, 
stopped  short  by  the  yards  of  Chaffer  Street. 

The  little  children  knew.  Little  children  always 
know. 

Half  Caroline  Whapsharc's  teaching  was  done,  in 
pleasant  weather,  out  on  the  "back  slope."  There 
was  a  real  barberry-bush  to  run  around  ;  there  were 
beautiful  hiding-places  for  the  chickens,  and  sly 
corners  for  the  fox.  Above  all,  there  was  room  for 
the  planets. 

Dr.  Plaice  came  through  the  Ions1  hall  of  the  old 

O  O 

house,    one    day   in   May,  drawn    by   the    open-air 
chatter  of  little  voices  like   loosened   brooks.     He 


62  ZERUB    THROOP'S    EXPERIMENT. 

stood  there  a  minute  or  two  in  the  end  door,  looking 
on  at  a  wonderful  game, — no  less  than  the  game 
of  the  stars  in  their  courses. 

The  roundabout,  which  dried  the"*  clothes  on 
Monday,  had  its  long  arms  taken  out,  and  piled 
away  beside  the  fence.  To  the  swivel  at  the  top 
of  its  centre-post  were  fastened  stout  twine  strings, 
longer  and  shorter ;  and  each  of  these  was  held  at  its 
farther  end  by  a  little  scholar,  who,  drawing  by  its 
tether  to  a  greater  or  less  distance,  and  keeping  the 
line  taut,  was  joyously  revolving  in  a  prescribed  or 
bit,  to  the  time  of  a  tune  which  Caroline,  seated  on  a 
low  stool  at  the  centre,  and  personating  the  Sun, 
sang  to  them  as  the  music  of  the  spheres. 

Little  golden-haired  Mercury  —  the  youngest 
pet  pupil,  Robie  Lewiston  —  trotted  around  close 
by  her  feet ;  occulted  now  and  then  against  her  lap 
when  ho  grew  tired.  A  pretty  eight-years-old 
Venus,  sunny-eyed  and  ringleted,  came  next ;  and 


ZERUB    THIIOOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  G3 

then  sober,  clear-faced,  pleasant  Ruth  Tollman,  for 
Earth.  Mars  was  a  sturdy,  rollicking,  rather  un 
manageable  fellow;  Jupiter,  Saturn,  Uranus,  were 
the  big  scholars,  in  the  edge  of  their  teens.  Farther 
into  space  Caroline  did  not  try  to  go ;  nor  could  she, 
without  getting  into  the  river.  It  was  enough  for 
all  practical  purposes. 

By  and  by  (this  was  the  best  part  of  the  play) 
Caroline  lifted  up  her  hand,  and  forth  started  a 
comet  from  behind  a  gooseberry-bush.  From  away 
down  by  the  bank  of  the  river  he  came,  describing 
his  parabola  among  the  planets,  bearing  down  to 
ward  the  Sun,  crossing  orbit  after  orbit,  but  never 
when  the  heavenly  body  was  there.  This  was  the 
"  steering."  It  was  as  great  fun  as  coasting  down 

o  O  O 

hill  among  multitudinous  sleds.  lie  took  his  sight 
from  the  start,  and  threaded  his  way,  bobbing  under 
the  lines,  and,  wheeling  at  length  close  around  with 
little  Mercury,  shot  oft*  again  upon  the  other  side. 


64  ZERUB    TIIROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

Dimmy  Pickctt  did  it ;  a  pennon  of  white  muslin, 
fastened  around  his  head,  flew  behind  him.  This 
was  the  comet's  tail.  Dimmy  was  only  seven  years 
old,  little  and  bright.  A  larger,  duller  boy  could 
not  have  done  it. 

When  the  play  was  over,  the  planets,  out  of 
breath,  came  up  around  the  Sun ;  and  the  Sun  asked 
them  questions. 

"  What  are  the  strings  meant  for  ?  " 

"  Gravitation,  that  ties  them  to  the  sun." 

"  What  is  your  pulling  away  as  far  as  you  can 
for?'' 

"Centrifugal  force,  that  makes  them  fly  off." 

"What  do  both  together  do?  " 

"Keep  them  going  round  and  round  just  in  their 
own  separate  places." 

"  Are  there  really  strings  up  in  the  sky  ?  "  asked 
little  Venus. 


ZKllUJi    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  65 

Caroline  held  up  her  finger,  and  beckoned  to 
Venus.  Venus  came. 

"Why  did  you  come  to  me?  I  did  not  pull  you 
with  the  string." 

"  You  beckoned." 

"  God  beckons." 

All  the  little  planets  were  still.  There  was 
silence  in  their  heaven  for  the  space  of  half  a 
minute. 

Then  Dimmy  Picket  spoke.* 

"  Suppose  she  had  had  her  back  turned  ?  " 

"  Every  little  atom  in  the  whole  world  of  worlds 
has  its  face  toward  God." 

"  What  do  they  pull  away  for,  then?  " 

"God  gives  them  a  will  of  their  own,  to  go  a 
little  way  of  their  own  ;  but  they  cannot  get  beyond 
his  will.  The  two  wills  make  the  beautiful  glad 
motions,  and  all  the  life  and  the  glory. 

"  There  are  anemones  down  by  the  spring.     Who 


66  ZERUB  T /TROOP'S  EXPERIMENT. 

will  come  this  afternoon,  and  go  with  me  to  gather 
them?" 

Caroline  had  given  them  their  bit  of  physics  and 
metaphysics.  It  was  enough  for  this  time. 

Everybody  would  go  and  gather  anemones,  — 
everybody  but  big  Jupiter.  He  did  not  say  any 
thing  ;  he  wanted  to  play  football. 

"May  I  go  too?"  asked  Dr.  Plaice,  coming  over 
from  the  door. 

Caroline  had  sat  with  her  back  toward  him.  She 
started  a  little,  and  flushed. 

"It  is  the  children's  walk.  Will  you  have  Dr. 
Plaice  go  too?"  she  asked  them. 

"  He  doesn't  belong,"  whispered  Venus,  shyly. 

"  Oh  !  I'm  the  new  planet,  —  the  far,  far-away 
one,  that  only  comes  in  sight  once  in —  ever  so  long. 
I've  been  a  good  while  getting  here.  But  I'm  dis 
covered  now,  and  must  be  counted  in.  I  belong ; 
truly  I  do." 


ZEROS    TIIKOOP'S    EXPERIMENT.  67 

Something  made  the  pretty  Sun  change  color  •'yet 
more  at  this.  Among  them  all,  nobody  had  the 
presence  of  mind  to  say  him  nay.  So  the  doctor 
said  he  would  come,  and  bring  his  microscope  with 
him.  After  the  tremendousness  of  things  in  general, 
they  might  like  to  descend  to  something  small  and 
particular. 

Dimmy  Pickctt  stood  staring,  in  a  queer,  bright, 
eager  way,  while  the  plan  was  settled.  lie  looked 
at  the  doctor  and  at  Caroline,  as  if  he  were  making 
a  bewildering  computation,  astronomical  or  other 
wise,  too  large  for  his  small  head. 

Caroline  did  not  notice  ;  she  was  busy  with  little 
Mercury.  But  the  doctor  saw  it,  and  had  an  end- 
of-the-world  instinct  that  the  comet  was  bearing 
down  upon  him. 

All  at  once,  the  erratic  little  luminary  did  bear 
down  upon  the  Sun,  displacing  Mercury. 

"See  here!"   said  he,   breaking  out  with    a    shy 


68  ZERUR  Tnnoop's  EXPERIMENT. 

bravado  in  a  child's  loud  whisper.  "  I  know  some 
thing,  Miss  Caroline,  —  I  do  ;  only  Flipper  told  me 
not  to  tell." 

"Then,"  said  innocent  Caroline,  "be  sure  you 
don't.  You  won't  ever  be  a  man,  —  a  splendid, 
honorable  man,  —  if  you  tell  things  that  you  ought 
not.  And  say  'Philippa.'  Your  sister  has  a  pretty 
name;  but  'Flipper'  isn't  pretty." 

"  Everybody  calls  her  '  Flipper.'  She  is  '  Flip 
per  ' !  "  returned  the  comet,  half  inclined  to  be  a 
little  sulky.  He  had  expected  to  have  his  secret 
teased  out  of  him. 

Dr.  Plaice  caught  the  last  sentences  as  he  turned 
away  quickly,  for  fear  of  what  might  come  next. 
He  walked  back  into  his  office  with  an  excited  per 
plexity  in  his  mind. 

How  long  could  he  save  Caroline  from  this  ?  And 
what  ought  he  to  do?  Go  away?  or  stajr,  and  do 


ZERUB    TlinOOl'' S    EXPERIMENT.  09 

that  which  he  had  hardly  made  up  his  mind  would 
be  right  to  do? 

He  sat  down  in  his  corner  chair,  near  which  the 
little  passage  and  the  blinded  east  door  were  opc'ii, 
letting  in  the  soft  summer  of  a  few  hours  that  the 
May  day  was  giving. 

He  had  hardly  sat  there  twro  minutes,  when 
little  steps  came  by  around  the  corner,  and  little 
heavenly  bodies  —  three  or  four  —  made  a  constel 
lation  just  outside  the  folded  blinds. 

lie  could  see  them  as  they  stood.  The  Comet 
looked  big  and  red  and  portentous ;  little  Venus 
was  sparkling  and  coaxing. 

"  Tell  me,  Diminy  ;  just  me,  you  know." 

And  Earth  and  Jupiter  crowded  up  close  also  to 
hear. 

"  I  s'pose  Flipper  meant  not  to  tell  her;  besides, 
she's  always  telling  everybody  not  to  tell  every 
thing.  And  they  do.  She  does." 


70  ZERUB    THROOP'S  EXPERIMENT. 

"  Grown-up  people  tell  the  most,  I  think,"  said 
Venus,  gravely.  "  They  keep  all  the  telling  and  all 
the  cake,  and  say  it  isn't  good  for  children.  Is  it 
about  us,  Dimmy?" 

"I  told  you  'twas.  By  least  it  would  be  some 
time.  She  said  it  would  be  a  forever  vexation." 

"Vacation,  you  mean,  Dimmy,"  said  elder 
Earth. 

"  I  say  vexation  at  home ;  and  Flipper  says  it  is 
vexation.  So  now,"  said  Dimmy. 

"I  shouldn't  like  a  forever  vacation,"  said  Ruth 
Fellman,  waiving  the  point. 

"But  it  would  be,"  persisted  Dirnmy,  "if  she 
went  and  got  married.  And  Dr.  Plaice  is  her 
beau.  Flipper  said  so." 

"  Poh  ! "  said  big  Jupiter,  and  walked  off. 

Earth  and  Venus  looked  at  each  other  with  a 
wide  wonder  in  their  eyes,  and  set  their  little  white 


ZERUB  rnnoor's  EXPERIMENT.  71 

teeth  suddenly  very  tight  upon  their  under  lips. 
It  was  a  tremendous  secret ! 

Venus  came  to  first. 

"Well,  it  must  be  pretty  nice  to  have  a  beau," 
she  said. 

"  Mr.  Dimmy  Comet ! "  said  a  voice  behind 
them.  The  blind  opened,  and  the  doctor  stood 
there. 

"Allow  me  to  beg  the  honor  of  a  further  ac 
quaintance  with  so  well-informed  a  gentleman. 
You  will  please  to  walk  into  my  office  here." 

Dr.  Plaice's  hand  was  on  Dimmy's  shoulder. 

"Oh,  my  gracious!"  cried  Earth  and  Venus 
simultaneously,  and  simultaneously  rushed  down  a 
broad  vista  of  space,  that  is,  the  village  street,  that 
turned  between  the  tin-shop  and  the  tailor's. 

That  light  hand  on  Dimmy's  shoulder  was  not  to 
be  mistaken.  He  walked  in  up  the  step  as  a  little 


72  ZERUB    THROOP'S    EXPERIMENT. 

boy  docs  walk  in  when  his  sins  have  found  him 
out. 

Dr.  Plaice  closed  the  door. 

''Take  a  seat,  Mr.  Comet,"  he  said  politely. 
"The  arm-chair,  if  you  please." 

If  he  had  put  him  on  a  cricket,  or  let  him  stand,  it 
would  not  have  been  half  so  bad.  The  arm-chair 
was  high,  formidable,  and  awfully  suggestive.  The 
tone  of  the  "  if  you  please  "  was  unrelenting.  The 
doctor  might  be  going  to  pull  all  his  teeth  out ;  but 
he  was  without  remedy. 

Dimmy  hitched  up  backwards  into  the  great 
chair,  putting  his  heel  upon  the  forward  rung,  and 
hoisting  himself  by  the  arm.  Seated  there,  his 
Iqgs  hung  ridiculously  short  and  small. 

"  The  leading  object  of  my  life,"  said  the  terrible 
doctor,  turning  to  the  mantel,  and  taking  up  his 
meerschaum,  "  is  enlightenment.  You  have  en 
lightened  me  very  much  indeed  within  the  last  five 


ZERVD    T77JIOOI>>S   EXPERIMENT,  73 

minutes,  Mr.  Comet.  I  feel  exceedingly  obliged 
to  you,  —  and  to  Flipper."  And  the  doctor  filled 
leisurely  the  howl  of  his  pipe,  pressing  the  tobacco 
down  evenly. 

"Smoke,  Mr.  Comet?  No,  I  thought  not. 
Judging  professionally,  I  should  say  that  your  con 
stitution  was  not  quite  —  up  to  it." 

Dr.  Plaice  struck  a  match,  held  it  to  the  pipe, 
and  took  a  whiif  or  two,  then  drew  a  chair,  and  sat 
down  himself. 

This  was  awful !  How  long  was  it  to  go  on  ? 
How  long  did  it  take  the  doctor  to  smoke  his  pipe  ? 
Would  he  keep  him  there  all  day  mocking  at  him? 
Would  he  ever  let  him  go?  And  what  would 
Flipper  say  ? 

Dimmy  twisted  his  short  legs  desperately,  and 
untwisted  them  hazardously,  and  recklessly  twisted 
them  again.  lie  squeezed  the  rim  of  his  little  soft 
felt  hat  into  a  great  many  doubles,  to  correspond 


74  ZEKUB    TflROOp'S  EXPERIMENT. 

with  his  legs ;    then  he  let  it  out,  and  squeezed   it 
up  again.     He  began  to  grow  alarmingly  red    and 

swelled  in   the  face  with  mingled    shame  and  fear 

« 
and  indignation. 

"Your  news  was  very  interesting,  Mr.  Comet," 
resumed  the  doctor ;  "  especially  to  myself.  For 
that  reason,  and  for  another  that  I  will  mention 
presently,  I  should  prefer  that  it  should  not  be 
spoken  of  in  like  manner  again.  Do  you  under 
stand  ?  " 

For  all  answer,  Dimmy  struggled  with  his  legs 
again,  and  obliterated  his  cap. 

"  The  second  reason  is,  that  it  does  not  happen  to 
be  true.  If  it  were,  I  should  be  likely  to  tell  of  it 
myself.  A  gentleman,  Mr,  Comet,  does  not  speak 
of  other  people's  personal  affairs  until  he  is  author 
ized  ;  and  he  never  repeats  things  that  he  hears,  in  a 
whisper,  with  a  '  Don't  tell ! '  neither,  I  thinly,  does 


THROOP'S  EXPERIMENT.  75 

a  lady.  In  the  first  place,  ladies  and  gentlemen 
do  not  very  often  hear  those  things  at  all." 

Dimmy's  redness  grew  ominous.  He  winked 
very  hard.  These  were  very  grown-up  words  of 
the  doctors ;  but  instinct  translated  them.  He 
learned  a  half  page  of  dictionary  at  least,  in  these 
five  minutes,  that  he  never  forgot.  He  was  very 
much  ashamed,  and  he  was  very  mad.  His  legs 
were  in  such  a  snarl  with  the  chair  by  this  time  that 
it  was  hard  to  tell  which  was  human  and  which  was 
mahogany ;  his  face  was  big  with  tears  that  he 
would  not  cry,  and  his  hat  was  pretty  nearly  hope 
less. 

At  last,  two  words  came  forth,  very  much 
thickened  and  swollen  themselves  with  their  long 
restraint : — 

"  By  George  !  " 

Dimmy  lisped  a  little  on  his  g's ;  and  the  exple 
tive  sounded  like  something  huge  and  soft,  flung 


76  ZKRUD    TffROOP's    EXPERIMENT. 

with  great  force,  and  hitting  as  hard  as  it  could. 
Dr.  Plaice  laughed  out ;  he  could  not  help  it ;  but 
then  he  immediately  got  up,  and  came  oxter  toward 
Dimmy,  with  his  hand  held  out.  He  did  not  wish 
to  humiliate  and  enrage  him  utterly.  He  meant  to 
treat  him  really  like  a  man  at  last. 

"That  is  all,  Dimmy.  Now  let's  shake  hands, 
and  be  friends.  You  don't  like  being  talked  to  like 
a  mean  little  man?  Well,  you  can  wake  up  from 
that  bad  dream  all  safe  at  seven  years  old,  with 
twice  your  age  yet  to  grow  in,  and  to  make  what 
kind  of  a  man  you  will.  Miss  Caroline  told  you; 
if  you  want  to  be  a  '  splendid,  honorable  '  one,  don't 
do  any  small  meddling  things,  or  tell  any  small, 
meddling  tales." 

And  Dr.  Plaice  kept  hold  of  Dimmy 's  hand  till 
his  legs  untwisted,  and  he  was  slid  safely  down  out 
of  the  big  chair.  Then  Dimmy  put  on  his  cap, 
pulled  it  very  much  over  his  eyes,  and  departed 


ZERUB    TH HOOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  77 

meekly  and  swiftly.  When  he  was  around  the 
corner,  however,  behind  the  tin-shop,  he  paused, 
pushed  his  cap  up  into  its  place,  took  a  good  long 
breath,  and  said  "  By  George  !  "  again.  But  there 
were  things  in  this  "  By  George  !  "  that  had  not 
been  in  the  other.  Out  of  it  came  a  good  deal 
in  the  boy's  life  that  would  not  else  have  been 
there,  and  that  we  shall  not  follow  him  on  to  tell 
about. 

The  first  resultant  was  his  going  with  the  walk 
ing-party  that  afternoon,  in  spite  of  the  tingle  with 
which  he  thought  of  it ;  which,  if  he  had  not  been  in 
a  pretty  fair  sens'e  a  "  by-George "  character,  one 
would  hardly  have  expected  him  to  do.  lie  had 
two  minds  about  it ;  but  the  spirit  that  swore  by 
the  king  that  was  in  him  prevailed.  lie  wouldn't 
sneak  of!',  afraid.  lie  would  face  the  doctor  and 
those  girls.  Besides,  ho  would  stop  the  tattle  ;  that 


78  ZERUD    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

is,  he  thought  he  would.  There  was  a  good  deal  of 
the  royal  in  this  for  seven  years  old. 

Venus  was  in  the  middle  of  a  knot  of  girls  when 
Dimmy  came  upon  the  field.  He  watched  and  loi 
tered,  until  she  emerged  for  a  minute,  and  he  caught 
her  upon  the  edge.  Then  he  sauntered  by,  close  to 
her,  his  hands  in  his  pockets. 

"I  say,"  he  said  low,  over  his  shoulder,  "don't 
tell  of  that,  you  know.  'Taint  true." 

"  My  sakes ! "  cried  little  Venus,  coming  quite 
away,  and  going  on  with  him  ;  "I  have  told." 

"  Poh  ! "  exclaimed  Diinmy,  in  disgust.     "  Who  ?  ' 

"Just  Aurora,  my  best  friend,  you  know." 

Now,  Aurora  was  just  the  biggest  little  chatter 
box  in  the  Avhole  school. 

Poor  Dimmy  began  to  find  out,  to  his -dismay, 
how  hard  it  is  to  catch  up  with  a  mistake. 
He  thought  of  Jupiter,  too,  off  in  his  bigger  orbit, 
with  the  village  fellows.  What  might  not  he  say,  iu 


ZERVB    THROOP'S    EXPERIMENT.  79 

his  big-boy  fashion,  worst  of  all,  notwithstanding 
his  "  Poll "  ?  The  little  Comet  was  very  uncomfort 
able,  and  wished  with  all  his  heart,  that  he  had 
kept  his  tale  to  himself. 

Aurora  was  nudging  and  whispering,  walking  be 
hind  the  doctor  and  Miss  Caroline,  with  her  other 
best  friend,  a  larger  girl,  Laura  Frances.  It  was 
plain  there  was  no  knowing  what  might  come  of  it. 
The  whole  solar  system  would  have  hold  of  it,  and 
what  a  blaze  and  whirl  that  would  be  ! 

Dimmy  marched  up  to  Dr.  Plaice,  at  his  open 
office-door,  when  they  were  back  again,  and  the 
girls  had  gone. 

"  I  can't  help  it,  after  all,"  he  said,  without  any 
antecedent  to  the  "it."  "I  tried  to  stop  it,  and  it 
won't." 

"It  isn't  easy  to  stop  a  thing  that  is  once  started. 
There's  a  law  of  nature  against  it.  But  I'll  see 


80  ZERUB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

what  I  can  do,  Dimmy ;  and  it  is  all  right  between 
you  and  me,  any  way." 

Dimmy's  throat  felt  queer ;  and  he  came  very  near 
saying  "  By  George  !  "  again. 

The  sun  was  going  down,  and  the  air  was  just  as 
s\Tseet  and  tender  as  it  had  been  all  the  day.  Win 
dows  and  doors  stood  wide,  gathering  in  the  rich 
feeling  of  June  from  the  May  air.  Dr.  Plaice  came 
round  through  the  hall  again. 

"Miss  Caroline,"  he  said,  "the  Golden  Gate  is 
open.  Will  you  go  down  and  see  ?  " 

The  Golden  Gate  was  the  opening  up  the  river 
where  the  west  shone  in,  and  filled  up  all  the  water 
aisle  with  a  mist  of  glory.  Far  and  deep  between 
the  trees  that  closed  on  either  side  lay  the  burning 
splendor  whence  the  tide  flowed  down ;  and  violet 
or  crimson  bars  would  lie  across  as  the  flame  faded, 
or  flecks  and  burnished  lines  of  yet  intenser  fire  be 
thrown  up  like  isles  and  coasts  along  a  dazzling  sea, 


ZERUD    THROO^'S    EXPERIMENT.  81 

and  .ill  gathered,  as  it  were,  into  one  focus  of  light, 
for  the  wooded  fringe  and  the  high  banks  of  the 
stream  covered  at  right  and  left  the  stretch  of  the 
horizon,  and  left  all  heaven  to  be  imagined  from  its 
single  unclosed  door. 

So  they  went  down  to  the  river-side.  The  slop 
ing  bank  shut  out  house  and  street  and  all  the  vil 
lage  sounds.  Office  and  school-room,  and  all  the 
ways  by  which  their  living  and  everybody's  else 
went  on,  were  behind  them.  Nothing  was  here  but 
God's  beautiful  world  that  his  souls  are  born  into, 
and  before  them  the  Golden  Gate  lay  open. 

"It  is  like  a  beautiful  secret,"  said  Arthur  Plaice. 

"  It  is  like  the  heaven  inside  and  behind,"  said 
Caroline,  softly. 

"  Yes  ;  it  is  like  that.     It  is  that  heaven   is  the 
great,    beautiful    secret.     There   is   a   piece    of    it, 
Caroline,  that  I  have  wished  to  tell  you.     Only  the 
other  side,  there  is  still  the  dusty  street." 
c 


82  ZERUB    TIIROOP'S  EXPERIMENT. 

Caroline  stood  utterly  still. 

"  I  am  afraid  I  have  no  right ;  because  —  "  his 
pause  became  a  period.  "  I  have  earned  just  fifty 
dollars  all  this  last  year  beyond  what  absolutely  had 
to  keep  me,"  he  said,  speaking  it  out  quickly. 
"Your  little  school  is  better  than  that;  and  so  I 
have  no  right  to  tell  you  beautiful  secrets  by  the 
river-side,  and  then  lead  you  out  into  the  toil  and 
dust." 

"  You  mean  that  you  have  been  paid  just  fifty  dol 
lars,"  said  Caroline,  looking  at  him  very  proudly,  and 
then  turning  away  again ;  "  and  —  I  don't  care  for 
the  dusty  street." 

"And  you  do  care  —  ?" asked  Arthur,  eagerly, 
bending  down  to  look  after  the  shy  face. 

Caroline  flushed  up  like  the  sunrise  that  tells 
God's  morning  story  without  any  words. 

Arthur  Plaice  felt  the  joy  of  his  morning ;  but  he 
was  a  man,  and  wanted  speech,  — just  a  word,  ever 


ZERUB  Tmtoor's  EXPERIMENT.  83 

so  shy,  ever  so  small.  He  forgot  his  own  un 
finished  speaking. 

"  Translate,"  he  whispered. 

"I  do  care,"  said  Caroline,  quaintly  and  tremu 
lously,  "  for  the  beautiful  secret  —  which  you  didn't 
tell  me." 

And  then  the  secret  was  told. 

"  I  think  they  have  gone  through  the  Golden 
Gate,"  said  Lydia,  turning  round  from  her  organ, 
when  she  could  no  longer  see  her  notes. 

tfl  believe  so  too,"  said  the  mother,  seeing  them 
come  up  the  old  stone  step  at  the  end  door;  but  she 
said  it  to  herself. 

She  stepped  out  from  the  little  dining-room  where 
the  tea  was  ready,  —  split-cake,  toast,  and  a  pink 
square  of  delicately  broiled  smoked  salmon,  —  and 
met  them  in  the  dusk  of  the  long,  old  hall. 


84  ZERUB    TITROOP'S    EXPERIMENT. 

"Will  you  come  in? "she  said  to  Dr.  Plaice. 
*  "  We  are  just  ready." 

"I  will  come  if  you  will  let  me,  — mother  !  " 

He  had  got  her  hand  fast  with  Caroline's  in  his 
own,  as  he  said  it. 

"  O  you  two  children  ! "  Mrs.  Whapshare  an 
swered,  when  she  had  got  over  a  little  sob. 
"  How  long  you  have  got  to  wait !  " 

"  We  can't  help  that,"  said  Arthur.  « It  won't  be 
any  longer  than  it  was  before.  And  we  should  have 
waited.  I  suppose  we  have  been  waiting,  ever  since 
we  both  were  born." 

Dr.  Plaice  took  care  to  meet  Dirnmy  Pickett  the 
next  morning. 

"  I've  stopped  it,  Dirnmy,"  said  he,  holding  out 
his  hand. 

"How?"  said  Dimmy,  explosively. 

"As  the  Indians  stop  the  fire  from  chasing  them 
on  the  prairies, — kindled  it  at  my  own  end.  I 


Tnnoop's  EXPERIMENT.  85 

want  your  congratulations,  Dimmy.  I  ana  engaged 
to  be  married  —  some  time  —  to  Miss  Caroline  Whap- 
share." 

Dimmy  drew  back  his  hand  to  pull  his  hat  down 
over  his  eyes.  He  shuffled  with  one  foot  back  and 
forth  upon  the  ground.  He  was  overwhelmed  by 
this  real,  grown-up  news,  told  him  with  his  hand  in 
his  friend's  just  as  if  he  had  been  big  enough.  He 
did  not  know  what  to  do  with  it,  or  how  to  get 
away  and  leave  it.  All  at  once  he  pushed  his  hat 
back  again,  stood  square  upon  his  feet,  and  looked 
up. 

"  Are  you  making  fun  of  me  now,  Dr.  Plaice  ?  " 

"No,  indeed.  I  am  telling  you  my  good  news  as 
my  particular  friend,  whom  I  told  yesterday  that  it 
wasn't  true.  You'll  wish  me  joy,  won't  you?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Dimmy.  vBut,  if  you  want  anybody 
else  to  know  it  now,  I  guess  you'll  have  to  tell  'em 
yourself.  There's  Miss  Suprema  coming." 


86  ZERUB    THROOP'S  EXPERIMENT. 

And  Dimmy  vanished  round  the  corner,  and  into 
the  school-room  door. 

Dr.  Plaice  stood  still  and  laughed.  "  That's  the 
brightest  boy  in  Kintheroote,"  said  he  to  himself. 

Miss  Suprema  came  up. 

"  Why,  doctor,  what  is  it?  What  have  you  done 
to  Dimmy  Pickett?" 

"Told  him  some  news,  and  got  his  advice.  The 
advice,  I  think,  was  excellent ;  and  I  am  sure  my 
news  was." 

Then  he  told  her  the  news  ;  and  she  forgot  to  ask 
him  anything  about  the  advice. 

When  he  went  back  into  his  office,  he  saw  her, 
through  the  blinds,  standing  in  one  of  her  awful 
equilibriums.  Whether  she  should  keep  on,  down 
the  village-street,  taking  her  chances  as  she  went, 
or  turn  about,  and  go  straight  up  to  Mrs.  Benny 
Dutell's,  before  she  heard  of  it  from  anybody  else? 
She  could  not  expect  to  be  first  with  everybody ; 


ZERUK    THROOP'S    EXPERIMENT.  87 

she  must  be  first  with  Mrs.  Dutell.  So  the  great 
whirl  within  her  set  her  off  in  a  right  line  at  last, 
and  she  went  up  the  street  like  a  cyclone. 

The  doctor  drew  up  his  shoulders  with  a  laugh 
ing  shake,  turned  to  his  desk,  and  sat  down. 

Sat  down  to  his  desk  and  his  books ;  and  knew 
that  he  began,  that  moment,  the  days  of  a  hard,  un 
certain  waiting.  The  news  was  told ;  the  fire  had 
run ;  he  had  made  a  safe  place  to  stand  in ;  and  now 
he  must  only  —  stand.  That  makes  a  long  chapter  ; 
the  Apostle  Paul  knew  that,  but  it  is  not  a  chapter 
for  a  magazine. 

"  It  is  all  there  can  be  about  it  for  ever  so  long, 
Arthur,"  Caroline  herself  had  said  to  him,  in  the 
first,  blessed,  sober,  certain  "  talking-over." 

"  Mother  could  not  do  without  me,  and  my  little 
school,  until  Lydia  is  ready  with  her  music,  and 
John  gets  some  sort  of  salary  that  will  more  than 
pay  for  his  tickets  in  the  cars  and  his  lunches  in  the 


88  ZERUD    TJIROOP'S    EXPERIMENT. 

city.  I  must  stay  by  home,  you  see.  I  shouldn't 
be  worth  taking  away  if  I  wouldn't." 

For  two  years  there  was  no  new  point  reached  in 
this,  their  story ;  none  but  the  little  shining  points 
that  count  in  "  the  kingdom ;  "  in  the  inside  beauty 
that  lies  away  from  the  dusty  street ;  that  holds  all 
the  loveliest  secrets,  and  the  least  of  them  some 
times  the  loveliest ;  and  where  the  Father  that  seeth 
in  secret  keeps  his  own  inner  blessedness  hidden 
fast  with  the  hearts  of  his  children. 

But  in  two"  years  the  outward  may  halt  step  with 
the  inward  till  the  hobble  grows  wearisome  and 
painful. 

In  two  years  Dr.  Plaice  had  only  put  into  the 
bank  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  more.  In  two 
years  Mrs.  Whapshare's  face  had  gathered  new 
lines,  and  Caroline's  had  grown  a  little  thin  and 
pale  with  the  constant  pull  of  school. 

Martha  was  two  years  crustier,  and  more  like  an 


ZKHUB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  89 

old  maid,  while  her  service  in  the  household  was 
more  comprehensive  and  invaluable  than  ever. 
Lydia  and  John  were  growing  up  to  the  realization 
of  the  hard  tug  of  life,  and  the  knowledge  of  the 
many  wants  and  wishes  that  must  go  unmet. 

Snprema  Sharpe  had  had  two  years  in  which  to 
find  herself  often  at  default  for  fresh  aliment  of 
news,  and  driven  to  turn  and  worry  and  recrunch 
the  old ;  as  a  dog  keeps  a  bone  buried,  and  digs  it 
up  once  in  a  while  to  try  for  a  little  more  marrow 
in  it. 

Every  now  and  then  she  dug  up  the  Plaice-Whap- 
share  bone  ;  and  every  time  she  set  it  forth  in  sorrier 
fashion,  and  yet  "  bonier  "  light. 

"  The  doctor  was  tired  of  his  bargain ;  ho  hadn't 
much  the  look  of  a  satisfied  man ;  if  it  was  ever 
coming  to  anything,  why  didn't  it  come?  The 
AVhapsharcs  held  on  well ;  she  would  say  that  for 
them." 


90  ZERUB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

Or,  it  was  "  a  shame  for  Mrs.  Whapsliare  to  keep 
Caroline  toiling  on  at  her  school  for  her.  Why 
couldn't  she  marry,  and  keep  school  to  help  her 
self?  Car  was  growing  old ;  she  had  got  gray  hairs 
on  her  temples.  No  doubt  they  were  awful  poor ; 
everybody  knew  the  place  was  mortgaged  ;  and  old 
Rufus  Abell  didn't  lend  his  money  just  to  get  it  back 
again.  There  was  Lydia  flourishing  away  on  that 
organ.  Much  she'd  ever  make  of  it !  She'd  better 
have  been  running  a  sewing-machine." 

In  two  years,  Zerub  Throop  Avas  dead,  and  no 
body  could  find  out,  for  a  good  while,  what  he  had 
done  with  his  mouejr.  By  and  by  it  came  out  that 
there  was  a  will,  and  that  Rufus  Abell  was  executor. 
Of  course ;  Rufus  Abell  executed  everything. 

Mrs.  Whapsliare  took  to  having  little,  nervous 
starts  every  time  Rufus  Abell  came  round  the  corner. 
She  could  not  shake  off  the  notion  that  news  was 
coming  to  her  yet.  from  old  Zerub  ;  from  old  Zerub  — 


ZERUB    TJIIWOP'S    EXPERIMENT.  91 

and  the  Lord ;  for  she  remembered  always  that 
about  the  king's  heart :  and  she  knew  that  in  the 
inward  light  of  things  she  had  a  right,  and  that 
the  Lord  and  his  angels  live  and  work  continually 
in  the  inward  light,  where  man  can  neither  see  nor 
reach. 

But  Kufus  went  and  came,  and  never  stopped, 
or  even  looked  up  at  the  Whapshare  windows.  It 
was  plain  that  he  had  no  thought  of  any  contingency 
for  them. 

All  that  was  known  about  the  will  was,  that  it 
was  an  odd  one ;  as  it  would  not  have  been  Zerub 
Throop's  if  it  were  not.  That  nothing  was  to  be 
settled  —  save  certain  legacies,  the  chief  of  which 
was  to  Sarah  Hand,  providing  for  her  and  for  the 
cat—  for  five  years  ;  only  the  property  to  be  taken 
care  of,  rents  and  dividends  collected,  and  all  to 
wait  that  time,  for  any  claim  that  might  arise  ;  fail- 


92  ZERUB    THROOI^S   EXPERIMENT. 

ing  which,  it  was  then  to  be  devoted  to  certain 
specified  public  uses. 

Rintheroote  was  exercised  to  conjecture  what  that 
possible  claim  might  be.  A  secret  marriage,  —  a 
child,  — half-a-dozen  children,  perhaps,  adrift  some 
where,  liable  to  turn  up? 

Eufus  Abell  held  his  peace ;  indeed,  he  had  noth 
ing  else  to  hold ;  the  will  registered,  and  open  to 
any  reading,  only  said  just  that :  "  For  any  claim 
upon  said  estate  that  may  legally  and  within  that 
time  arise." 

But  Rufus  Abell  did  call  one  day.  The  mortgage- 
debt  was  falling  due,  and  the  garden-lot  would  have 
to  be  sold. 

This  was  how  it  was  with  the  Whapshares  at  the 
time  the  queer  thing  happened  which  nobodjr  will 
believe,  and  which  Mrs.  Eylett  Bright  will  tell  of  in 
the  next  chapter. 


ZERUB    THROOP'S   EX1>ERIMENT.  93 


IT. 


HOW  THE  GHOST  MANAGED.  MRS.  EYLETT 

BHIGIIT'S  STORY. 

MY  dear,  I  well  tell  you  all  about  it.  It  was  a 
haunted  house.  It  was  all  explained  by  simple 
causes, — yes;  but  it  was  a  haunted  house,  never 
theless.  It  is  a  haunted  world  we  live  in,  for  that 
matter,  Dora  Dutton. 

You  see  there  are  so  many  of  us,  —  so  many 
little  Eylett  Brights ;  I  like  to  call  them  by  their 
whole  patronymic,  it  suits  them  so  well,  Dutton, 
dear. 

We  all  needed  the  country  that  summer.  I  was 
run  down  with  change  of  servants,  and  nursing; 
little  Thode  had  just  crept  out  of  scarlet  fever, 


94  ZERUB    TIIROOP'S    EXPERIMENT. 

with  the  tattered  shreds  of  his  dear  little  mortality 
about  him,  wanting  all  sorts  of  patching  up ;  and 
the  other  children  had  had  it  too,  more  or  less ; 
mostly  less,  thank  the  good  Providence  !  We  all 
needed  the  country,  —  doctor  said  we  must  have 
it ;  but  there  was  Eylett  tied  down  to  his  desk,  and 
the  two  thousand  wasn't  any  bigger  for  us  this  year 
than  ever  before. 

The  country  is  so  wide  and  free  ;  and  yet  it  is  so 
hard  to  get  a  place  in  it,  —  a  place  for  ever  so 
many  little  Eylett  Brights  ! 

We  wanted  a  large  house,  and  we  wanted  it 
furnished ;  there  must  be  plenty  of  out-of-doors, 
and  yet  we  did  not  want  a  "place"  that  would 
have  to  be  kept  up.  People  who  were  going  to 
Europe,  and  had  out-of-town  residences  to  leave, 
must  leave  them  to  their  own  sort,  you  know ; 
carriage  and  lawn  and  garden  people,  who  would 
have  gardeners  and  grooms.  It  was  as  much  as 


ZERUB    THXOOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  95 

ever  we  could  do  to  have  Onie  and  Ann.  More ; 
for  they  were  both  going  to  leave.  They  had 
objections  to  the  country.  So  we  got  Margaret 
and  Ellen  from  the  intelligence  office,  —  the  same 
article,  you  know,  with  a  new  label;  and  there 
isn't  much  variety  in  the  labels,  either.  It  is 
wonderful  how  we  have  rung  over  the  changes,  — 
Margaret  and  Katy  and  Ann ;  Bridget  and  Ann  and 
Katy ;  Bridget  and  Margaret  and  Ellen ;  and  how 
natural  and  of  course  the  name  sounds,  whichever  it 
is,  when  they  tell  it ;  and  how  the  impression  of 
the  whole  successive  multitude  drifts  and  runs 
together  in  our  minds  into  the  image  of  one  great, 
awful,  representative,  —  kitchen  creature  ! 

Well,  we  searched  the  papers,  and  we  searched 
the  country  ;  wTe  had  spent  fifteen  dollars  before  we 
knew  it,  running  out  and  in  to  see  things,  and 
conclude  they  wouldn't  do.  So  we  kept  quiet  a 
while,  and  almost  gave  it  up.  Eylett  said  we 


96  ZERUB  rnnoop's  EXPERIMENT. 

might  hit  upon  something  by  and  by,  when  some 
body's  house  was  left  on  their  hands,  too  late  for  a 
high  rent  or  a  whole  season.  I  didn't  see  how, 
though.  I  told  him  it  would  have  to  come  and  hit 
upon  us ;  we  couldn't  afford  to  go  after  it  any 
more. 

Things  do  come  and  hit  you  if  you  only  stand 
still  because  you  must,  —  not  because  you're  lazy. 

One  day,  at  the  counting-room,  Mr.  Ilaughton 
was  asking  Eylett  after  his  family.  Eylett  told 
him  he  was  getting  along ;  but  they  needed  a 
change,  and  it  was  not  easy  to  make  a  plan  that 
would  suit  in  all  ways. 

"  Take  a  house  a  little  way  out  of  town,"  said 
Mr.  Haughton. 

"I've  been  trying  to,"  said  Eylett,  "but  the 
house  I  want  doesn't  seem  to  be  anywhere." 

One  of  the  boys  came  in  from  the  bank  just 
then,  and  heard  it. 


ZERUB  TTIROOP'S  'EXPERIMENT.  97 

"I  know  of  a  house,  Mr.  Bright,"  ho  said;  "but 
it's  rather  a  queer  one,  up  over  the  hill,  out  of  our 
village;  and  to  let  cheap,  I  guess,  —  old  Zerub 
Throop's.  He's  dead,  and  things  aren't  to  be 
touched  for  live  years.  But  the  house  can  be 
hired  just  as  it  is,  if  anybody  likes.  It  is  a  jolly 
big  one,  and  an  old  garden  and  fields  all  round  it. 
AVhy  don't  you  come  out  and  sec  it?" 

Eylett  guessed  he  would. 

And  so,  one  day,  we  went  out  to  Kinthcroote. 

Why,  you  see  it  was  splendid  !  All  that  great 
hill,  and  the  sunrise  on  one  side,  and  the  sunset 
the  other !  But,  as  to  the  house,  it  seemed  as  if 
the  day  had  always  had  to  climb  over  and  round 
it,  and  had  never  shone  through  it.  Such  a  musty, 
shad}-,  lo-from-the-tombs  old  place  you  never  got 
into  !  The  front  door  was  all  grown  up  with 
weeds  and  vines.  It  was  tall  and  narrow,  with  an 
old-fashioned  fan-liiHit  over  it.  It  looked  as  if 


98  ZKRUB    TJIROOP'S    EXPERIMENT. 

nothing  had  ever  gone  in  and  out  but  coffins,  I  told 
Eylett. 

"We  found  a  woman  in  the  village  who  had  kept 
house  there ;  and  she  went  up  with  us,  and  showed 
it. 

"  It's  in  good  order,"  she  said;  "the  front  part's 
clean,  because  it  aint  never  been  dirtied ;  and  the 
back  part's  clean,  because  I  done  the  scrubbin'." 

There  was  one  real  lovely  room  across  the  ell, 
upstairs,  at  the  end.  Four  windows,  —  east, 
south,  and  west, — the  sun  and  the  soft  wind  just 
rioting  through. 

"O  Eylett!"  I  cried,  standing  in  the  middle, 
"  Here's  the  summer  time  and  the  beauty !  Here's 
the  life  of  the  house  !  " 

"Yes'm,"  said  Mrs.  Hand,  "here's  where  'twas. 
But  I'll  tell  you  what,  'taint  more'n  fair  to  let  you 
know.  I  don't  believe  it's  all  gone  out  of  it.  / 
don't  believe,  in  my  soul,  ZeruVs  done  with  it!" 


ZERUB    TIIROOrS    EXPERIMENT.  99 

She  spoke  in  a  hushed  way,  as  if  there  might  be 
some  one  listening. 

"  Done  with  it?     He's  dead  !  " 

"Yes'm;  that's  just  why  you  can't  tell.  I  stayed 
here  a  month  afterwards,  and  I  had  —  well,  experi 
ences.  If  I  was  you,  I'd  shot  it  up." 

"Shut  it  up  !     I  shall  put  the  children  into  it." 

"  That  may  do.     Maybe  he'll  quit,  then." 

I  had  my  doubts  about  that  conclusion,  if  I  hadn't 
about  the  ghost.  I  couldn't  think,  if  he  wanted 
to  come  at  all,  that  old  Zerub,  or  any  other  rational 
spirit,  would  come  back  the  less  for,  —  }rou  needn't 
laugh,  Dutton  ;  I  don't  care  if  they  are  mine  !  " 

"See  here,  my  good  woman!"  says  Eylett 
turning  round  sharp,  "I  can't  come  here  if  my 
servants  and  children  are  to  get  hold  of  this  non 
sense.  Has  it  been  talked  round  in  the  village?  " 

"  Not  from  me  ;  I've  held  my  tongue  too  long  for 
Zerub  to  begin  chattering  now.  I  always  left  all 


100  ZERUB    TJIROOP  S   EXPERIMENT. 

his  affairs  to  hisself,  an'  I  do  yit.  But  this  is  your 
affair,  kinder,  if  you're  comiu'.  I  jest  cased  rny 
mind." 

"  It  shall  be  the  play-room,  —  the  day-nursery," 
I  repeated,  ignoring  the  nonsense  once  and  forever. 
"And  here,"  said  I,  going  back  into  a  small  adjoin 
ing  chamber,  f>  I'll  have  my  sewing-machine  and  my 
writing-desk,  and  all  my  little  things  and  doings 
that  I  want  close  by  the  children,  but  not  mixed 
up  and  crowded  with  them.  We  can  be  grand 
here,  Eylett.  There  is  no  end  of  room.  As  to 
those  front  parlors  and  bedrooms,  we'll  fasten  back 
every  blind,  and  fling  up  every  window,  and  let 
June  do  the  rest.  We'll  come,  Eylett,  won't  we?" 
I  concluded  after  my  wife  —  fashion, — a  decision 
first,  and  a  question  afterward. 

So  we  went  down  into  Rintheroote,  and  found 
Mr.  Eufus  Abell,  the  agent ;  and  Eylett  put  in  the 
ghost  story  in  the  way  of  business,  and  got  off  fifty 


Tnnoop's  EXPERIMENT.  101 


doll:irs  for  that  ;  though  I  told  him  men  always  came 
out  with  the  very  thing  they  didn't  want  men 
tioned  ;  and  we  took  the  house  for  three  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars,  and  could  stay  the  season,  —  three 
months,  or  six,  as  we  had  a  mind. 

But  we  Avcre  not  to  ask  to  have  the  first  thing 
done  for  us,  and  we  were  to  alter  nothing  ourselves. 
These  were  the  conditions. 

We  had  a  splendid  time  moving.  You  know  I 
don't  mind  trouble  ;  and  the  children  were  as  gay 
as  larks.  We  didn't  have  much  to  move,  either  ; 
only  our  clothes,  and  the  few  things  we  couldn't 
live  without,  and  to  send  the  rest  right  off  to  a 
store-room  ;  for  we  gave  up  our  house  in  town,  of 
course. 

Margaret  and  Ellen  gave  warning  the  second 
morning  after  we  got  there  ;  that  we  expected.  All 
we  hoped  for  from  them  was  to  get  through  the 
flitting  ;  though  how  they  could,  with  the  sun  shin- 


102  ZERUK    TFIROOP'S    EXPERIMENT. 

ing  as  it  did,  and  the  clover  smelling,  and  the  birds 
singing,  I  doii't  see.  I  should  as  soon  have  given 
warning  in  heaven,  — as,  to  be  sure,  I  suppose  some 
folks  will ! 

Well,  we  didn't  care  ;  it  was  all  fun,  nobody  was 
going  to  call,  I  could  just  put  on  a  calico  wrapper, 
—  keep  it  on,  I  mean,  — and  take  right  hold,  if  it 
came  to  that;  and  we  set  Mrs.  Hand  to  inquiring  for 
us  in  the  village.  In  result  of  which,  after  three 
days  of  the  "  warning,"  and  three  days  more  of  the 
"  week "  that  they  wouldn't  stay,  and  hardly  ever 
will,  and  you  hardly  ever  care  to  have  them,  since 
the  days  of  warning  are  in  themselves  so  like  the 
days  of  doom ;  and  after  yet  three  other  days  of 
expectation  and  hard  work,  and  baker's  bread, 
there  came  to  "  our  ha'  door,"  and  when  that  Avas 
opened  into  the  best  —  I  mean  the  dingiest  —  parlor, 
a  —  well  —  these  presents  :  — 

A  hat  and  feather,  —  that  is,  a  very  remarkable 


ZEKUB    THROOP'S    EXPERIMENT.  103 

and  exaggerated  piece  of  a  bird,  that  was  neither 
wing,  tail,  nor  breast,  but  enough  of  it  for  all  three, 
attached  mysteriously  to  the  middle  of  a  forehead ; 
an  emphatic  chignon,  a  very  much  fluted  and  hitchcd- 
up  alpaca  overskirt,  and  a  pair  of  tall-heeled  boots, 
on  which  all  the  rest  walked  in. 

AVhat  else  should  have  come,  unless,  indeed,  it 
had  happened  to  be  a  man?  These,  you  know,  are 
the  things  which  stand  for  a  woman  nowadays,  and 
make  up  the  general  presentment  and  expression 
of  her,  confounding  distinctions;  so  that  the  pieces 
of  a  woman  in  the  windows  of  the  Great  furnishing 

O  O 

shops,  ''  articulated "  on  wires,  hint  out  something 
rather  superior,  on  the  whole,  to  most  of  the  speci 
mens  which  articulate  themselves,  and  are  seen 
about  the  streets. 

The  "articulation,"  in  this  instance,  announced 
herself  to  me,  looking  at  her  with  a  puzzle  and  a 
question  in  my  face,  as  "a  girl."  An  American 


104  ZERUB    THROOP'S    EXPERIMENT. 

girl  she  was  too;  no  Irish,  we  found  out  gradually, 
would  apply.  Although  Sarah  Hand  had  been 
reticent,  Terence  Muldoon,  who  chored,  and  chopped 
wood,  and  "fought  and  carried  "  for  old  Mr.  Zcrub- 
babel  Throop,  and  who  stayed  by  to  "garrud  the 
hoose,"  with  Mrs.  Hand,  during  the  month  of  her 
closing-up  services  and  administration,  had  not 
been  so ;  and  there  were  vague  and  terrible  rumors 
afloat  in  the  Irish  stratum  of  society,  and  the  uni 
versal  Irish  mind  was  set  against  the  "  owld  Throop 
place  an'  its  divilments."  This  came  to  us  by  de 
grees,  as  our  own  experience  developed. 

"I'm  the  girl,"  said  the  articulation,  "that  Miss 
Hand  was  to  look  up.  She's  my  Aunt  Sarah.  I'm 
a  dasher." 

"You're  a  —  what?"  said  I,  explosively,  in  my 
astonishment. 

"  A  dasher  :  —  A  dasher  down." 

I  just   stared.     I  began  to  think  she  must  be  a 


ZEIlUfi    THRO  OP'S    EXPERIMENT.  105 

lunatic.  And  a  lunatic  who  announced  herself  as  a 
dasher  down  might  not  be  the  subject  of  a  form  of 
hallucination  one  Avoukl  like  to  have  illustrated  in 
one's  parlor. 

But,  while  I  stared,  she  added  mildly,  "That's 
my  name." 

r  Oh  !  "  said  I,  relieved,  arid  catching  my  breath. 
"  Just  spell  it,  if  you  please." 

"  A  ,d,a,s,h,a,  —  Adasha  ;  D,o,w,n,e,  —  Downc  ; 
Adasha  Downc." 

"  Thank  you.  It  souuds  rather  terrific,  you  see, 
before  one  knows,  especially  for  a  person  wrho  is  to 
handle  cups  and  saucers." 

Adasha  gave  a  bright  look  out  of  her  eyes  with 
out  moving  a  muscle  of  her  very  round,  and  very 
large,  and  very  solid  face. 

"There's  many  a  one  gets  a  name,  you  know,  for 
a  thing  they  never  di'V  Then  she  smiled  widely. 
She  could  not  help  it ;  she  must  do  it  widely,  if  she 


106  ZERUB    THKOOP'S    EXPERIMENT. 

smiled  at  all.  It  took  very  little  exertion,  and  but 
slight  play  of  her  lips ;  for  her  lips  were  ample,  and 
behind  them  were  white  teeth  that  needed  generous 
accommodation. 

I  liked  the  smile  and  the  bright  look.  I  began 
to  think  of  engaging  her ;  up  to  that  moment  I  had 
only  thought  how  to  get  rid  of  her.  I  asked  her 
if  she  could  make  bread  and  hop-yeast ;  if  she  could 
wash  and  iron  ;  and  if  she  would  do  anything  else 
that  I  might  ask  of  her,  and  tell  her  how. 

She  could  and  she  would. 

"  Will  you  take  off  your  things  and  stay  now  ?  " 

"  Well,  ma'am,  you  see,  in  my  suit  and  my  heeled 
boots  and  my  hair,  I  don't  really  see  how  I  could. 
But  I'll  get  a  bag  o'  clo'es,  and  come  back  in  half  an 
hour." 

"Very  well." 

She  did.     And  so  we  had  Adasha  Downe. 

That  was  all  we  had  ;  and  we  found  it  was  all  we 


ZRRVB    Til  HOOP'S    EXPEniMRXT.  107 

bad  to  hope  for.  For  love,  nor  money,  nor  for 
Christian  charity,  we  could  get  no  soul  to  offer  or 
consent.  We  tried  for  three  weeks  ;  and  then  v/e 
settled  down,  until  the  prejudice  should  wear  away, 
to  a  plan  that  we  fitted  to  the  case.  A  boy  to  do 
chores,  and  a  woman  to  come  three  times  a  week, 
and  wash  and  iron  and  scrub.  Then,  with  all  the 
children,  and  their  summer  liberty,  on  my  hands, 
I  thought  of  another  expediency,  —  a  young  girl  as 
a  sort  of  governess-companion,  who  might  keep 
them  up  in  their  A,  B,  C,  and  their  tables,  tell  them 
which  side  of  the  world  they  were  on,  and  a  few 
preliminary  items  of  like  importance ;  sew  on  a 
string  or  a  button  now  and  then,  and  help  mo  in 
such  things  as  I  daily  put  my  practical  hands  to. 

AVo  found  her  ;  she  Avas  foreordained. 

Do  you  remember  little  Car  Whapshare,  the 
youngest  girl  at  dear  old  Cradley  School  the  last 
year  we  were  there?  She  lives  right  here  in  Kin- 


108  ZERUD    TUnOOp's    EXPERIMENT. 

theroote ;  and  she  had  kept  school  until  she  hadn't 
much  face  left ;  though  what  she  had  kept  the 
pretty  in  it,  as  the  child's  barley-sugar  keeps  the 
clear  and  the  sweet  down  to  the  last  thin  needle  of 
identity.  She  was  engaged  to  marry — in  this  life 
or  in  the  life  everlasting — a  splendid  fellow,  the 
young  doctor  of  the  place.  But  the  old  doctor 
wouldn't  let  go,  and  the  old  patients  wouldn't 
change;  and  so  he  Avas  getting  —  excellent  practice 
and  very  limited  pay ;  and  Car's  mother  was  poor. 
And  that's  the  way  things  were  with  them ;  and 
they  couldn't  be  much  more  wayward. 

Arthur  Plaice  —  her  doctor  —  said  she  must  give 
up  teaching,  for  all  summer  at  least.  She  was  in  a 
worry.  But  then,  there  was  I  in  a  worry  too,  up 
there  on  the  hill;  and  the  worries  of  the  world  do, 
once  in  a  while,  when  the  right  ones  are  thrown 
together,  turn  suddenly,  by  the  beautiful  chemistry 
of  things,  into  a  blessed  mutual  content. 


ZKRUD    TIIROOP'S    EXPERIMENT.  109 

Car  Whapshare  came  to  live  with  us  all  summer. 

And  it  was  just  after  she  came,  mind  you,  that 
the  signs  and  wonders  began. 

How  we  three  —  Car,  Adasha,  and  I  —  did  work, 
letting  the  besieging  pleasantness  into  that  old 
house  !  Adasha,  cleared  for  action,  without  her 
heeled  boots  and  her  hair, — that  is,  with  only  a 
reasonable  amount  that  you  might  believe  in, 
gathered  up  with  a  screw  and  a  double  behind,  and 
fastened  with  a  rubber-comb, — without  any  humps 
or  hitchups,  —  turned  suddenly  into  an  individual. 
That  was  a  refreshment  and  a  confidence.  I  sup 
pose  there  is  a  beauty  of  "the  all,"  —  Emerson  says 
so ;  but  you  do  want  caches  ;  the  world  will  never 
make  up  the  nicest  kind  of  total  by  rubbing  out  its 
units. 

A\re  could  not  alter ;  but  we  could  innovate  and 
renovate.  We  rolled  back  the  heavy  worsted 
damask  curtains  on  their  old-fashioned  gilded  poles, 


110  ZERun  Tn HOOP'S  EXPERIMENT. 

throw  wide  the  blinds,  and  let  the  summer  in.  We 
turned  the  musty  old  chairs  and  sofas  out  on  the 
grass;  we  cut  away  the  thorn-branches,  and  the 
twisted  stems  of  creepers  from  the  choked-up 
porch ;  and  we  left  the  high,  narrow  door  open  all 
day  long,  so  that  a  column  of  sunshine  poured  it 
self  through  that  way  in  the  morning,  and  bars  of 
gold  shot  slanting  across  from  the  windows  of  the 
south  parlor  through  the  noontime.  When  the 
house  was  sweetened  full  of  it,  we  began  to  shut 
the  green  blinds  again  in  the  midday,  and  only 
leave  the  air  to  filter  in  from  over  sun-basked  fields 
and  tops  of  clover. 

"  We'll  drive  the  ghosts  out,"  I  said,  gayly. 

"They'll  be  driv'  out  or  stirred  up,"  said  Adasha 
Downe.  "I  don't  s'pose  we  can  tell  which  till 
we've  tried." 

Mrs.  Hand  came  up  several  times  to  see  us. 
Partly  because  of  her  niece ;  partly  because  of  the 


ZKRUD    THROOP1  S   EXPERIMENT.  Ill 

cat,  which  was  her  charge,  but  which  she  could  not 
coax  away  with  her ;  and  partly  to  ask  me  privately 
every  time,  and  with  solemn  emphasis,  just  before 
she  went  away,  "if  we  had  noticed  anything." 

"Nothing,"  I  told  her  at  last,  "but  that  black  cat. 
She  haunts  the  house.  There's  something  awful 
about  her.  She  steals  round  everywhere,  like  an 
uneasy  spirit ;  but  she  won't  come  in  and  be  tame. 
I  have  met  her  in  the  rooms  and  on  the  stairs ;  but 
the  minute  she  sees  anybody,  she's  off  like  a  black 
rocket,  with  her  tail  straight  up  in  the  air,  and  as 
big !  The  children  have  found  a  kitten  ;  they  pet 
that,  and  the  old  cat  stands  away  off  and  watches. 
She  is  like  a  hunym  mother,  that  lets  her  child  be 
taken  in  where  she  doesn't  feel  willing  or  worthy  to 
go.  She  behaves  like  a  bad  conscience." 

"  Zerub  Throop  hadn't  a  bad  conscience.  lie 
waru't  giviir,  nor  he  warn't  pious  ;  but  he  was  a 
real  righteous  pertickeller  man." 


112  ZERUB    Til  HOOP'S    EXPERIMENT. 

"I  never  thought  of  Mr.  Throop,  Mrs.  Hand.  I 
was  speaking  of  the  cat." 

"All  the  same.  She's  in  it.  She  knows,"  said 
Mrs.  Hand,  impressively. 

"  Cats  are  siguful  creator's,  about  weather,  an' 
sickness,  an'  such  ;  an'  they  have  a  feelin'  for  other- 
world  things,  too,  you  may  depend  they  do.  They 
see  in  the  dark.  What  does  that  mean?  It  just 
corresponds.  Do  you  know  how  hard  it  is  to  keep 
a  cat  out  of  a  dyin'  room,  or  where  a  corpse  is  ? 
You  just  wait  and  notice." 

"  Oh,  for  mercy's  sake,  don't ! "  I  cried  out, 
almost  with  a  shriek. 

The  woman  was  growing  ghastiy. 

"  La !  I  didn't  mean  anything.  Like  as  not 
you'll  never  have  a  chance.  But  that's  a  fact.  It's 
the  reason  why  they  stay  round  places  so.  Every 
thing  isn't  gone,  and  they  know  it.  Why,  live 
folks  leaves  something  of  theirselves  in  the  places 


ZERUB    THR  OOP'S    EXPERIMENT.  113 

where  they're  been  and  acted.  Now,  whenever  I 
hecrd  them  noises,  that  cat  AVJIS  alwers  yowlin' 
alongside.  Way  off,  maybe,  or  even  afterwards ; 
but  she  always  jined  in,  —  or  Amenned." 
"Mrs.  Hand,  what  were  the  noises?" 
"  I  don't  know.  Kind  of  stirrin's,  —  soimdin's  ; 
everywhere  to  once,  distant  and  down-like,  but 
striigglin'  an'  risin'  up.  I  can't  tell  you  what  they 
were  ;  but  the  old  house  seemed  all  breathin'  alive 
with  'em,  as  if  they  might  bust  out  anywheres.  I'll 
tell  you  what  I  think.  If  ever  you  hear  anything, 
you'll  hear  more.  It  seemed  to  me  as  if  'twas  only 
a  kind  of  gettin'  ready,  a-gropin'  out.  You  wait 
and  notice." 

"If  only  you  wouldn't  please  say  that!"  cried  I, 
nervously.  The  words  were  growing  awful  to  me. 
And  then  I  laughed  at  myself  for  minding  them,  or 
any  of  it,  as  I  bade  Mrs.  Hand  good-morning  at 

that  pleasant  cast  side-door,  opening  out  into  the 

* 


114  ZERUB    TIIROOP'S  EXPERIMENT. 

warm,  living  breath  and  glory  of  the  perfect  June 
day. 

Well,  the  children  had  their  games  all  day  long; 
their  blocks  and  their  baby-house,  their  tea-parties 
and  their  soap-bubbles,  in  the  bright  ell-chamber ; 
and  they  played  horse,  driving  each  other  with  gay, 
knitted  harness  and  reins,  up  and  down  the  long 
passages  of  the  old  house  ;  and  they  went  to  bed  at 
night  in  the  west  rooms,  back  of  ours,  where  the 
twilight  lingered  till  they  were  fast  asleep ;  and  I 
said  to  myself,  "They  take  up  all  the  time,  and  they 
fill  the  house  full ;  what  else  —  if  there  were  any 
thing —  could  creep  in?  Their  little  plays,  and 
their  little  prayers,  and  their  little  dreams,  and 
their  sweet  sleeping  breath,  —  why,  it's  a  home 
now,  brimming  over  with  them.  Bad  vapors 
couldn't  come  up  through  the  fair,  full  fountain." 

And  so,  after  the  happy,  tired  day,  I  went  to 


ZKRVR  rnnoor's  EXPERIMENT.  115 

sleep  myself,  and  slept  as  having  angels  about 
me. 

There  was  one  thing  we  had  to  do  to  that  ell- 
chamber.  We  had  to  take  the  door  down.  It  was 
a  modern  door,  put  up  since  Mr.  Throop  came ;  and 
it  lifted  off  on  its  hinges.  The  reason  we  could  not 
have  it  on  was,  that  it  shut  with  a  horrid  spring- 
lock.  We  couldn't  have  the  children  getting  shut 
in  there  every  day,  and  having  to  be  taken  down 
outside,  you  know,  with  ladders. 

Eylett  and  I  had  the  north-west  front  bedroom. 
There  were  two  large  rooms,  and  a  little  one  tucked 
in  between,  on  each  side  the  hall  in  the  main  house ; 
then  the  long  ell  ran  back,  and  there  were  three  or 
four  in  that,  besides  the  attics.  Caroline  "YVhap- 
share  slept  in  the  large  one  back,  on  the  south-east 
side,  and  the  children,  as  I  said,  were  in  the  rooms 
behind  ours.  Nobody  slept  in  the  ell.  Adasha 


116  ZERUB    TJIROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

Downe  had  the  little  room  next  to  Miss  "Whap- 
share's. 

Somehow,  in  the  great  rambling  place,  we  did 
like  to  keep  all  together  at  night.  There  would  be 
thunder-showers,  and  there  might  be  burglars ;  no 
body  believed  in  anything  else  or  farther  off.  The 
children  never  heard  a  word.  I  found  I  could 
really  trust  Adasha  Downe. 

Whether  it  was  the  fatigue  that  gave  us  such 
sound  nights,  or  whether  there  never  was  anything 
to  wake  us  up  until  the  night  I  am  going  to  tell  of, 
I  don't  know ;  but  so  it  was,  that,  for  a  week  or  two 
after  my  talk  with  Sarah  Hand,  we  might  have  been 
the  builders  and  first  dwellers  at  Throop  Hill,  for  all 
sign  we  had  from  the  "  soul  of  things "  in  its  old 
timbers  or  out  from  its  far  corners. 

Then,  all  at  once,  something  happened. 

I  had  gone  to  bed  one  evening  at  ten,  and  had 


ZERUJi    THROQ^S    EXPERIMENT.  117 

had  my  first  two  hours'  nap.     Suddenly  I  sat  up, 
wide  awake. 

Something  crashed  me  awake  ;  a  great  resounding 
came  with  me  out  of  my  dream ;  and  I  listened 

mentally  in  as  great   an  outward   silence,   to    hear 

--» 

what  it  had  been  like. 

A  ringing,  clattering,  metallic  sound,  as  if  a  tin 
man's  cart  had  been  upset  outside,  or  a  great  sheet 
of  thin  iron  been  shaken  or  struck  upon  somewhere 
in  the  house. 

Had  I  heard  it  ?  or  was  it  only  that  all  my  nerves 
had  suddenly  vibrated  with  some  tingling  shock, 
and  waked  me  with  a  feeling  of  such  sound?  It 
was  "all  over,  everywhere,"  as  Mrs.  Hand  had  ex 
pressed  it ;  cither  all  over  me,  or  —  creation  per 
haps. 

Why  did  not  everybody  in  the  house  wake  up  ? 

While  I  held  my  breath  and  wondered,  it  came 
again.  Now  I  knew  that  I. heard  it  Avith  my  bodily 


118  ZERUB    T/IROOP'S  EXPERIMENT. 

ears.  But  what  I  heard,  I  could  neither  conceive 
iior  tell. 

"My  gracious,  Eylett !  what  was  that  noise?" 

I  had  my  hand  tight  upon  my  husband's  shoulder. 
But  Eylett  was  lying  on  his  right  side ;  and  he 
could  not  hear  with  his  left  ear. 

"Noise?  I  don't  hear  any.  Let  me  move.  Let 
me  get  my  good  ear  up.  What  was  it  like  ?  " 

"I  don't  know.  Like  a  ringing,  or  scraping,  a 
rattling,  a  reverberating,  crashing  and  hollow,  far 
off  and  all  round.  In  the  air.  As  if  the  house  was 
a  Chinese  gong,  and  somebody  was  walking  in  the 
middle  of  it." 

"All  that?     Pooh!     You've  been  dreaming." 

"No,  I  haven't.  I've  been  sitting  straight  up 
with  my  eyes  open." 

We  both  sat  straight  up  for  ten  minutes,  and  in 
those  ten  minutes  everything  was  deadly  still.  At 


ZKRUR    Til ROO^S    EXPERIMENT.  119 

the  end  of  them,  we  heard  a  cat's  dolorous  cry, 
away  off,  down  below,  somewhere. 

'; How  can  that  cat  have  got  in?" 

"  She  isn't  in ;  she's  under  the  piazza,  probably. 
She  docs  go  there.  You'd  better  go  to  sleep, 
Lizzie."  And  Eylett  laid  himself  down  again,  as 
men  do  when  there  isn't  a  fire  nor  anybody  to  shoot. 

I  knew  I  had  better  go  to  sleep  ;  but  I  didn't  for 
two  good  hours.  By  that  time,  I  could  hardly  have 
declared  that  I  had  heard  anything,  it  was  so  long 
ago,  and  I  had  so  studied  my  impression  to  pieces, 
trying  to  match  it  to  any  possibility  of  causation. 

Of  course  Eylett  laughed  at  me  in  the  morning ; 
and  of  course  I  let  him  laugh,  and  didn't  say  any 
thing  till  he  got  through.  Women  never  do.  Only 
when  I  thought  he  had  had  it  out  reasonably,  I 
hushed  him  up  as  regarded  the  rest  of  the  family. 
"Don't  talk  about  it  downstairs,"  I  said. 

He  thought  I  wanted  to  be  let  alone  on  my  own 


120  ZERUB    TflltOOP's   EXPERIMENT. 

account.  It  was  not  that.  I  wanted  the  fact  let 
alone.  If  it  was  not  a  noise,  it  was  an  experience. 
That  was  what  Mrs.  Hand  had  called  it.  If  you 
have  the  experience,  what  difference  does  the  noise, 
or  whatever  else  it  may  be,  make,  one  way  or  the 
other? 

The  next  night  I  went  to  bed  in  a  perfectly  calm 
and  equable  state  of  mind.  I  can  positively  affirm 
that  I  expected  nothing  except  to  sleep.  And  I  did 
sleep,  as  I  always  do,  instantly  and  soundly,  after 
my  little  read,  which  I  always  indulge  in  at  night, 
with  a  candle  on  my  small  book-table  beside  niy 
bed,  in  defiance  of  all  old-time  superstitions  handed 
down  from  the  days  of  voluminous  bed-curtains  and 
top-hamper,  and  absurdly  repeated  now,  when  we 
lie  down  on  our  flat  mattresses  in  their  low  French 
boxes,  with  nothing  combustible  within  a  yard  of 
the  light. 

I  slept  my  three  or  four  early  hours.     I  am  glad 


THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  121 

they  arc  the  hours  of  "  beauty-sleep  ;  "  for  they  are 
the  ouly  hours  I  am  perfectly  sure  of.  After  that,  I 
begin  to  nap  and  dream,  to  wake,  and  think  of 
things,  —  the  beans  I  meant  to  have  told  Adasha  to 
put  to  soak,  the  jam  that  must  be  scalded  over,  the 
twist  and  buttons  to  be  got  for  the  tailoress  who  is 
coming  Thursday,  then,  being  thoroughly  roused, 
to  go  round  and  regulate  open  windows,  and  cover 
up  the  children. 

It  was,  perhaps,  about  two  o'clock  when  I  was 
again  electrified  into  full  and  instant  consciousness. 
The  same  reverberating,  radiating  noise,  ringing, 
rattling,  metallic,  with  a  queer  sound  of  struggle  in 
it,  too,  that  suggested  Pandemonium  as  one  great 
tin  kettle,  and  all  the  little  imps  clawing  frantically 
to  get  out. 

Then  there  came  a  bang.  That  woke  Eylett. 
Neither  of  us  said  a  word,  but  both  were  instantly 
out  of  bed  and  into  dressing-gown  and  slippers. 


122  ZERVK    TflROOP's   EXPERIMENT. 

We  went  into  the  great  upper  hall,  and  stood 
still.  Everything  else  stood  still,  too.  We  could 
hear  the  old  Willard  clock  ticking  away  composedly 
down  in  the  dining-room,  and  not  a  breath  or  move 
ment  of  anything  else. 

We  went  on,  down  between  the  rooms ;  as  we 
went,  there  came  winding  up  from  somewhere,  the 
eerie,  weary,  wandering  wail  of  that  uncanny  cat. 

Two  doors  moved  their  open  cracks  a  little  as  we 
passed,  and  two  noses  were  put  forth. 

"Marm!  Sir!"  cried  Adasha  Downe,  in  a 
tremulous  whisper,  "what  was  that  racket?" 

"What  can  have  happened?"  said  Car  Whap- 
share. 

"Don't  wake  the  children,"  whispered  I.  "We 
are  going  to  see." 

We  went  everywhere  ;  tip  and  down  all  the  stairs, 
into  the  kitchen  and  pantries  and  out-rooms.  We 
opened  the  side-door,  and  looked  out  into  the  star- 


XKRUB    WHOOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  123 

light.  Something  black  dashed  out  between 
Eylett's  logs. 

"  I  told  you  that  cat  was  in,"  said  I. 

"  Well,  she's  out,"  replied  Eylett.  «  She  couldn't 
have  done  it." 

We  found  nothing  to  account  for  the  clatter,  not 
even  a  dipper  or  tin  pan  fallen  down. 

We  went  upstairs  again,  and  encountered  the 
noses  waiting. 

"What  Avas  it?"  came  the  two  whispers  again. 

"  It  doesn't  seem  to  have  been  anything,"  an 
swered  Eylett. 

"Marrn!"  said  Adasha  Downe,  breathlessly, 
"  that's  awful !  " 

"No,  it  isn't,"  I  retorted,  with  decision.  "It's 
quite  comfortable.  Don't  frighten  the  children." 

In  the  morning  I  was  dressed  early,  and  went 
through  the  rooms  upstairs  with  a  vague  feeling  as 


124  ZERUB    Til  ROOF'S   EXPERIMENT. 

if  I  might  see  by  daylight  where  the  sound  had 
bceii. 

There  was  a  tin  horse  on  the  entry  floor,  lying 
peaceably  upon  its  side,  with  that  touchingly  help 
less  and  resigned  expression  that  children's  dolls 
and  horses  have  in  the  cast-off  positions  in  which 
little  hands  have  left  them ;  there  was  the  usual 
litter  of  blocks  and  toys  in  the  play-room,  but  noth 
ing  seemed  as  if  it  had  borne  part  in  any  m}"stical 
orgie.  The  summer  sun  streamed  in,  and  filled  the 
chambers  to  the  brim  with  cheer  and  splendor. 

Coming  out  of  the  ell-room,  I  noticed  the  reg 
ister-valve  slipped  slightly  out  of  its  place,  and  rest 
ing  with  one  edge  just  over  upon  the  floor.  I 
pushed  it  back,  and  wondered  who  had  moved  it. 
I  supposed  Adasha  must  have  lifted  it  out,  in  sweep 
ing,  to  brush  the  dust  from  the  spreading  mouth 
of  the  pipe.  I  mentioned  it  to  her  when  I  went 
downstairs,  and  asked  her  to  be  careful.  It  would 


ZERUB  THROOP'S  EXPERIMENT.  125 

not  do  for  the  children  to  get  an  idea  of  its  coming 
off.  Adasha  told  me  she  had  not  "tctched"  it. 
She  didn't  know  it  would  come  off.  It  was  queer ; 
but  I  supposed  it  "happened  "  somehow,  and  then  I 
forgot  all  about  it. 

We  had  two  still  nights,  and  then  in  the  third 
a  rattle  and  a  slam  woke  me  up.  I  missed  the  re 
verberation,  if  it  had  occurred.  In  fact,  I  did  not 
connect  this  with  the  other.  It  sounded  like  some 
one  fumbling  at  a  blind  or  lock,  and  then  a  sudden 
jar,  as  of  blind  or  door  flung  back. 

"  It's  burglars  this  time  !  "  I  whispered  loudly  in 
Eylett's  car.  "  I  heard  them  trying  something,  and 
then  it  banged." 

"  Burglars  don't  bang,"  said  Eylett,  sleepily. 

"  There  isn't  any  wind,  and  things  don't  bang 
themselves,"  said  I.  "You'd  better  get  up." 

So  we  had  another  promenade.  It  came  to  noth 
ing,  like  the  rest. 


126  ZERUJI  TH ROOF'S  EXPERIMENT. 

"  Are  we  never  to  get  any  sleep  in  this  house  ?  " 
asked  Eylett,  in  a  melancholy  way.  "  Don't  hear 
anything  more,  Lizzie,  if  you  can  help  it." 

"No,  I  won't,"  I  replied  dutifully,  keeping  the 
rest  of  my  thoughts  to  myself. 

In  the  morning,  before  I  went  down  the  back 
stairs  to  the  kitchen  to  look  after  breakfast,  stop 
ping  at  the  play-room,  as  I  had  a  habit  of  doing, 
drawn  by  the  pleasantness  of  the  place  where  the 
children  had  been  yesterday  and  were  going  to  be 
to-day,  and  taking  a  glance  at  the  sunshine  and  the 
toys  that  seemed  conspiring  a  good  time  together, 
I  saw  that  register  off  again, —  really  off,  this  time, 
an  inch  or  two. 

Could  it  have  been  that  that  banged  in  the  night ! 
I  went  back  and  called  Eylett. 

"  Just  look  !  "  said  I.  "  How  do  you  suppose  it 
came  so  ?  " 

"Children,"  said  he. 


ZERUB    TH ROOT'S   EXPERIMENT.  127 

"  Xo,"  I  affirmed  positively.  "I  found  it  so  be 
fore  ;  and  I  have  Avatched.  They  never  meddle 
with  it;  and,  besides,  it  was  not  so  at  bedtime. 
AVc  undressed  them  here.  Do  you  suppose  I 
shouldn't  have  noticed  it?" 

"Spirits,  then,"  suggested  Eylett,  meekly,  as 
driven  to  a  logieal  end.  "  It's  their  style.  Like 
their  impudence." 

'•  Pshaw  ! "  said  I,  which  was  precisely  what  he 
wanted  me  to  say. 

For  all  that,  the  same  night  there  was  a  greater 
din  and  rampage  than  ever ;  and  the  next  morning 
there  was  the  register  fairly  oft*  and  awTay,  wheeled 
completely  from  the  hole,  and  laid  with  nearly  its 
entire  circumference  upon  the  carpet. 

I  called  them  all  then, —  Eylett,  Caroline,  and 
Adasha  Dowiie.  It  was  early.  The  children  were 
only  just  waking  up,  and  beginning  to  throw  the 


128  ZERUB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

pillows  at  each  other,  or  to  pull  on  stockings  heel- 
side  before. 

"That  ghost  comes  up  the  register-pipe,"  said 
Adasha  Downe,  solemnly,  looking  into  the  hole  as 
into  the  mouth  of  the  pit. 

"  And  the  ghost  is  "  —  cried  I,  with  a  sudden  illu 
mination. 

"Never  in  this  world  !  "  broke  in  Eylett,  catching 
my  idea,  and  putting  the  extinguisher  on  before  I 
had  fairly  shown  its  little  blaze. 

"Just  lift  that  register,"  said  he. 

I  put  my  hands  under  the  two  valves,  an  iron 
and  a  brass  one.  I  suppose  they  weighed  six  or 
seven  pounds.  Could  indeed  a  —  well,  the  object 
of  my  suspicion  —  lift  them  up  ? 

"I  don't  care,"  said  I.  "We'll  see.  I'll  sit  up 
this  very  night." 

On  the  whole,  however,  when  bedtime  came,  I 
decided  to  take  that  first  nap,  and  trust  to  the  usual 


ZKltUB    T/IKOOP'S    EXPERIMENT.  129 

reveille  for  warning.  If  I  was  right  in  my  convic 
tions,  it  would  give  me  time  enough.  I  am  a  light 
sleeper.  I  always  hear  the  first  stir. 

I  put  a  light  in  one  of  the  ell-rooms,  and  set  the 
door  open  upon  the  passage.  I  left  another  burn 
ing  in  my  little  sewing-room,  back  in  its  farther 
corner,  and  shaded  so  that  it  shone  faintly  out 
through  the  play-room. 

A  cross  passage  led  over  from  opposite  the  head 
of  the  back  staircase,  between  the  rooms,  to  a 
linen-closet.  Standing  in  this  opening,  or  just 
down  the  first  step  of  the  staircase,  one  could  com 
mand  the  whole  scene  of  action,  and  nothing  could 
pass  in  or  out  without  observation. 

I  laid  my  dressing-gown  and  slippers  in  instant 
readiness.  In  fact,  everybody  else  did  the  same  ; 
and  we  all  slept,  so  to  say,  upon  our  arms  ;  for 
everybody  had  petitioned,  "  Call  me,  if  you  hear 
anything." 


130  ZERUB    TJIROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

Somehow,  we  were  a  little  later  that  evening  than 
usual ;  so  that,  with  my  ordinary  and  extraordinary 
preparations  for  the  night,  it  was  eleven  o'clock, 
and  the  others  were  all  asleep,  when  I  was  about  to 
put  out  my  own  candle.  Just  as  I  had  my  hand 
upon  the  extinguisher,  it  began, —  the  noise. 

That  frantic,  struggling,  scratching,  ringing,  in 
fernal  sound,  coming  away  up  from  depths  below, 
and  echoing  everywhere. 

"  Quick  !  there  it  is  already  !  "  I  cried  to  Eylett, 
and  in  the  same  moment  was  off  myself.  I  darted 
in  at  the  two  doors  on  my  way,  and  wakened  the 
girls  with  one  shake  each. 

"  Don't  be  ten  seconds,  or  else  don't  come !  "  I 
said,  and  hurried  on.  And  in  less  than  a  minute  we 
were  all  upon  the  spot,  huddled,  listening,  lying  in 
wait,  in  staircase  and  entry. 

There  was  no  doubt,  standing  there,  where  the 
sound  came  from.  Up  that  long  pipe  from 


ZKRUB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  131 

two  floors  beloAv,  it  tore  and  grappled,  grated  and 
resounded  ;  came  on,  with  pauses,  higher  and  higher  ; 
at  last  was  on  a  level  with  ourselves.  Then  a  fierce 
stirring  and  grinding,  a  seizing  of  hold  and  pur 
chase.  And  then  the  valves  clattered,  as  if  pushed 
against,  ineffectually,  once  or  twice;  then,  with  a 
great  hoist,  they  raised,  swivelled,  clashing  round, 
and  fell  with  an  awful  bang  upon  the  floor. 

That  demoniac  cat  walked  forth. 

It  was  a  positive  fact.  We  saw  it  with  our  eyes. 
If  anything  in  this  story  —  my  part  or  anybody's 
else  —  is  embellished,  it  is  not  that. 

"  I  told  you  so  !  "  said  I  to  Eylett. 

And  Eylett  could  not  say 'a  word. 

We  were  all  down  cellar  next  morning,  after  our 
early  breakfast,  investigating ;  and  the  more  we 
investigated,  the  more  we  wondered. 

Out  of  the  brick  dome  of  the  furnace,  high  up, 
came  the  tin  pipe  that  ran  horizontally  one-third  or 


132  ZERUB    TfTROOF's    EXPERIMENT. 

more  the  length  of  the  house,  then  up,  twelve  feet 
perhaps,  through  the  lower  story  and  the  two  floors. 

We  opened  the  iron  door  of  the  air-chamber  from 
which  the  pipes  radiated,  and  looked  in.  There 
was  only  this  one  that  started  laterally ;  all  the  rest 
sprung  from  the  top.  The  furnace  itself  was  built 
close  against  a  brick  partition  which  divided  the 
cellar.  A  heavy  padlocked  door  shut  off  the  for 
ward  part,  which  had  been  Mr.  Throop's  wine-cel 
lar,  and  where  all  remained  as  he  had  left  it. 
Through  some  opening  in  the  back,  accessible  only 
from  this  locked  division,  must  come  the  supply  of 
air  to  feed  the  furnace-chamber,  and  circulate  in  the 
pipes.  Through  this,  also,  by  ways  known  only  to 
herself,  must  have  crept  the  cat,  and  likewise  cir 
culated. 

Into  that  dark,  hollow  space,  up  its  rough-cast 
sides, — into  the  small,  utterly  obscure  aperture, 
along  those  twenty  feet  of  mystery  and  uncertainty, 


ZEIiUB    THfiOOP'S    EXPERIMENT.  133 

—  one  would  think  this  was  exploit  and  marvel 
enough  ;  but  up  that  twelve  feet  perpendicular,  with 
nothing  but  the  lapping  of  the  tin  sheets  to  claw  by, 
and  the  bracing  of  her  body  between  the  narrow 
sides  !  Beyond  that,  the  closed  register  at  the  top  ! 
"What  sort  of  faith,  or  instinct,  or  impishness,  was 
it  that  led  her  on?  We  stood  in  utter,  awed  be 
wilderment.  It  was  almost  stranger  than  a  ghost. 

One  thing  was  certain,  we  could  not  let  the  play 
have  a  run  of  a  hundred  nights.  Something  must 
be  stopped  up,  or  come  down. 

"The  hole  in  the  furnace,"  suggested  Caroline. 

"  We  can't  get  at  it." 

"  Nail  something  over  the  register." 

"Then  we  should  have  the  noise,  all  the  same, 
and  the  poor  cat  would  have  to  tumble  twelve  feet, 
and  crawl  twenty  backward.  She  deserves  better 
for  her  smartness." 

"  Unhitch  the  pipe." 


134  ZERUB  THKOOP'S  EXPERIMENT. 

"We  can't  have  workmen  into  the  house,  or  alter 
anything." 

"I'll  do  it  myself,"  said  Adasha  Downe.  And 
she  straightway  ran  up  the  cellar  staircase,  beside 
which  passed  the  pipe,  and  laid  brave  hold. 

A  neck  of  iron  was  set  in  the  brick-work  of  the 
furnace,  around  which  fitted  the  tin  sheet.  Adasha 
pulled  and  pulled ;  but  what  could  she  do  with 
twenty  or  thirty  feet  of  metal  cylinder,  and  years 
of  rust?  Eylett  stood  still  considering,  while  she 
strove  unheeded.  Then  he  went  and  got  a  hammer 
and  a  chisel.  Then  I  climbed  up  on  a  barrel,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  pipe  to  where  Adasha  was.  Caro 
line  took  the  children  up  the  staircase,  and  kept 
them  there  peering  down  at  us  in  a  little  eager  heap 
from  its  head. 

Eylett  hammered  and  loosened,  and  we  pulled. 
We  all  pulled.  Eylett  twisted ;  and  presently,  all 
of  a  sudden,  some  weak  joint  gave  way  above,  and, 


ZKRUK  T/inoor's  EXPERIMENT.  135 

at  the  same  moment,  the  neck  yielded,  and  —  crash  ! 
down  came  the  whole  thing,  revenging  itself  upon 
us  by  its  compliance. 

"  O  mamma  !  mamma  !  "  cried  out  Robbie  ;  for  I 
and  my  barrel  had  tumbled  down.  Adasha  seated 
herself  very  hard  upon  the  stairs. 

"Are  yon  hurt,  Lizzie ?"  cried  Eylett,  coming  in 
a  hurry. 

No.  Nobody  was  hurt.  Only  the  pipe  was  sep 
arated  in  two  or  three  places,  the  air  was  full  of 
dust,  and  we  felt  as  if  we  had  pulled  half  the  house 
down. 

"Phew!  phew!"  said  Eylett;  and  brushed  his 
hands  against  each  other,  and  looked  at  the  wreck. 

He  lifted  a  long  piece,  and  set  it  up  on  end 
against  the  wall.  Out  of  it,  as  he  did  so,  fell  a 
great  deal  more  dust,  and  other  things  which  we 
perceived  as  the  dust  subsided.  A  great  many  pins, 
—  of  course  ;  an  old  piece  of  black  comb ;  a  red 


136  ZERUB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

chessman  ;  nutshells  ;  a  brass  thimble  ;  hair-pins  ; 
corks  ;  a  handful  of  coppers  that  probably  used  to 
roll  out  of  Zerub  Throop's  trousers-pockets  when  he 
pulled  them  off;  in  the  midst  of  the  heap,  some 
thing  round  and  bright,  like  a  silver  ball. 

The  children  —  little  wreckers  that  they  always 
are  —  were  down  again  by  this  time,  notwithstand 
ing  remonstrances.  They  couldn't  help  it ;  they 
kept  minding,  and  going  up,  and  irresistibly  grav 
itating  down  again,  in  little  sprinkles,  one  and  two 
at  a  time. 

Eobbie  pounced  upon  the  shining  thing. 

"Oh,  I  speak  for  that !  Is  it  a  silver  dollar, 
mamma  ?  " 

Poor  Eobbie  had  heard  traditions  of  silver  dol 
lars,  earned  and  saved  up  in  his  father's  childhood ; 
but  his  little  experimental  knowledge  stretched  not 
beyond  the  days  of  scrip. 


ZERUB    TH HOOP'S    EXPERIMENT.  137 

"Oh,  no!"  I  said,  foolishly.      "That  isn't  a  dol 
lar.     It  isn't  anything." 

"  Not  anything-,  mamma?     Why  —  why  —  here  it 


"I'll  tell  you  what  it  is,"  said  Blossom,  standing 
daintily  on  the  stairs  out  of  the  dust,  with  her  fresh 
pique  frock,  and  her  little  white  stockings.  "It's  a 
fairy  ball,  and  Miss  Whapshare  will  tell  us  a  story 
about  it." 

"So  I  will,"  said  Car,  seizing  her  opportunity. 
And  she  got  them  all  away,  up  out  of  the  cellar. 

What  she  told  them  I  don't  know,  —  about  fairy 
balls  that  opened,  and  had  wonders  inside ;  and 
fairy  balls  that  only  rolled  and  rolled  and  rolled, 
and  led  people  along  through  forests  and  among 
mountains,  and  out  into  some  paradise  perhaps,  of 
elf-land,  at  last ;  but  when  I  had  changed  my  dusty 
dress,  and  washed  my  face  and  hands,  and  seen 
Eylett  brushed  up  and  off  to  the  train,  I  found  them 


138  ZERUB    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

all  together  in  the  play-room ;  Car,  with  the  ball  ill 
her  hand,  and  Robbie  and  Blossom  beseeching  her 
to  open  it. 

"Then  it  will  be  spoiled,"  she  said,  "if  it  isn't  an 
opening  ball.  I  think  it  is  a  rolling  one.  It  must 
have  rolled  down  the  register.  Who  knows  where 
it  will  roll  next?" 

Behind  me  up  the  stairs,  in  a  fashion  of  privilege 
she  had  taken,  came  suddenly  Sarah  Hand. 

And,  of  course,  then  came  the  story,  —  all  about 
the  cat,  and  the  pipe,  and  the  ball. 

"You  see  a  great  tin  piece  of  the  house  came 
down  when  they  pulled,"  said  Robbie,  "  and  broke  ; 
and  everything  came  out,  —  cents  and  pencils  and 
everything." 

"Droppiu's  and  sweepin's,"  said  Sarah  Hand. 
"That's  how  they  came  there." 

"  Not  my  fairy  ball,"  said  Robbie.  "That  rolled 
itself.  Nobody  knows  where  it  rolled  from.  Way 


ZE11UB    mROOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  139 

down  and  down,  and  over  and  over,  and  all  through 
the  world." 

"  I'll  tell  yon  where  it  rolled  from,"  said  Sarah 
Hand,  taking  it  up.  "I  remember  it.  It's  one  of 
the  things  that  used  to  lay  round  on  Zerub  Throop's 
table.  I  know  'em  all  by  heart;  the  things  I  used 
to  turn  over  and  dust,  and  put  back  careful.  I 
noticed  that,  because  it  looked  as  if  there  might  be 
something  did  up  in  it.  He  fixed  it  his  own  self 
.one  day  after  dinner.  I  recollect  the  day  too. 

'Cause  Miss ,  he'd  had  a  visitor,  and  we'd  had  a 

talk.  I  s'posc  he  was  jest  settin'  thinkin'.  It's 
kinder  awful,  coinin'  across  things  so,  after  folks  is 
dead  and  -gone." 

And  Mrs.  Hand  laid  back  the  ball  on  Caroline 
Whapshare's  lap. 

Caroline  took  it  up  as  if  by  a  sudden  impulse, 
and  picked  out  one  dflgc  of  the  folded  foil.  A  little 
tremor  passed  over  her. 


140  ZERUR    TflROOP's    EXPERIMENT. 

"  What  is  the  matter  ?  "  said  I. 

"Nothing.     I  shivered,  I  don't  know  why." 

"Una  ! "  said  Mrs.  Hand,  and  looked  solemn. 

"  I  think  that  might  as  well  be  unrolled,  and  done 
with,  now  the  story  is  told,"  I  said  briskly  ;  for  the 
children's  eyes  were  getting  big.  "  We  shall  be 
having  little  nightmares  of  the  ball  travelling  about, 
if  we  don't  take  care." 

Then  Caroline  turned  back  corner  after  corner, 
edge  after  edge,  until  two  ends  were  opened  out. 
It  was  no  longer  a  ball,  but  a  little  roll.  There 
was  something  in  it. 

Paper,  — written  paper,  folded  and  coiled. 

"  I  feel  as  if  it  were  a  secret,"  said  Caroline,  as 
the  last  doubling  of  tin-foil  fell  away,  and  left  it  in 
her  hand. 

"  Perhaps  it  is.     But  there  is  nothing  hidden  "  — 

I  stopped.     Car  had   got    tl^e   paper   open,    had 


ZERUB    THKOOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  141 

given   one  glance  at  it,  and  every  bit  of  color  bad 
flashed  instantly  out  of  her  face. 

"  Mrs.  Bright !     What  does  it  mean  ?  " 

And  poor  little  Caroline  burst  out  crying.  That 
saved  her  from  fainting  away. 

I  took  the  creased  and  cnrled-up  scrap. 

"  For  value  received  of  Miles  WJicvpsJiare,  in  the 
year  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  forty-five,  I 
promise  and  direct  to  be  paid  to  Mrs.  Miles  Whap- 
share,  widow  of  said  Miles  Whapshare,  or  her  heirs- 
at-law,  six  months  after  my  decease,  or  on  the  pres 
entation  of  tJds  paper  to  my  executors  at  any  time 
witliin  five  years  from  such  decease,  Thirty-five 
thousand  dollars. 

"ZEEUBBABEL  Timoor." 

I  turned  it  over. 

"  October  19th,  I860. 

"  Left  to  Providence. 

"'Payable  to  order;  that  is,  on  turning  up." 


142  ZERUB    TffROOP'S  EXPERIMENT. 

We  sent  for  Rufus  Abell  and  for  Dr.  Plaice. 

It  was  all  quite  plain  and  strong ;  as  strong  as  it 
was  queer. 

"  This  is  the  thing  that  was  provided  for,"  said 
Rufus  Abell,  just  as  unmoved  as  if  he  could  possibly 
have  expected  it.  I  suppose  Mr.  Abell  had  got 
over  surprises  long  ago. 

Arthur  and  Caroline  went  home  together  to  tell 
Mrs.  Whapshare. 

I  watched  them  go  down  the  hill  in  the  sunshine, 
gathering  it,  as  it  were,  around  and  after  them,  to 
carry  down  in  one  great  golden  rush  into  the  corner 
house  that  had  been  full  of  little  crowding  clouds 
of  care  so  long.  I  thought  of  that  bit  of  creased-up 
paper  in  Rufus  Abell's  wallet,  and  how  it  would  go 
to  probate  with  the  will,  and  settle  everything,  and 
how  strange,  and  changed,  and  wonderful  it  all  was. 
And  I  bit  my  tongue  to  try  if  I  was  awake ;  and 
then  I  turned  round  and  said  to  Mrs.  Hand  :  — 


ZERUK    THROOf'S   EXPERIMENT.  143 

"  To  think  it  should  all  be  by  means  of  that 
cat !  " 

"It's  very  well,"  said  Mrs.  Hand,  with  slow 
significance,  "to  lay  it  all  off  on  to  her.  But  what 
possessed  the  cat?  It's  like  the  pigs  in  the  New 
Testament.  If  —  a  ghost  —  wanted  something  — 
ont  of  a  register-pipe,  — he  might  very  likely  need 
some  sort  of  a  cat's-paw  to  help  hisself  with." 

Was  it  a  cat,  or  was  it  a  ghftst,  or  was  it  simply 
Providence?  It  was  the  question  left  on  our  minds. 
We  thought,  humbly  and  honestly,  that  it  might  be 
all  three.  We  put  this  and  that  together  that  we 
had  learned,  and  we  believed  it  just  possible,  among 
the  mysteries,  that  Zerub  Throop  had  at  last  "come 
across  Providence,"  and  had  been  set  to  work  per 
haps  with  such  links  and  agencies  on  earth  as  he 
had  established  for  himself. 

At  any  rate,  the  Ghost  Story  and  the  Cat  Story 


144  ZERUB    THROOP'S    EXPERIMENT. 

got  so  mixed  up  and  merged,  that  they  were  never 
popularly  disentangled. 

We  could  never  get  any  other  girl  than  Adasha 
Downe  to  live  with  us  at  Throop  Hill,  though  we 
came  there  three  summers. 

"  The  owld  man  might  ha'  left  somcthin'  else  that 
needed  seein'  after;  who  knows?"  the  Irish  said. 

Caroline  Whapshare  and  Arthur  Plaice  were 
married  in  September.  Mrs.  Whapshare  gave 
them  five  thousand  dollars. 

"There  would  be  that,"  she  said,  "  for  each  of  the 
children,  and  the  same  for  her  own  part.  They 
should  have  their  share  as  they  came  to  want  it. 
She'd  done  waiting  enough  herself  for  the  whole 
family." 

Miss  Suprema  Sharpe  had  a  kind  of  congestive 
fever  that  fall.  She  took  cold  at  the  wedding.  But 
the  doctor  did  not  think  that  was  quite  the  whole 
of  it.  There  was  a  feverish  fulness  that  must  de- 


ZERVD    THROOP'S   EXPERIMENT.  145 

tcrmme  somewhere, — a  greater   pressure  than  the 
ordinary  circulation  could  carry  off. 

A  ghost-story,  a  wedding,  and  a  fortune,  —  what 
they  did  with  it,  and  how  they  behaved  about  it,  — 
all  this,  you  see  to  come  right  in  here,  like  an 
avalanche,  at  the  corner,  to  be  thoroughly  sifted  and 
discussed,  and  realized  and  criticised  ;  well,  it  could 
not  have  gone  much  harder  with  Suprema  Sharpe ; 
and  if  you  Knew  her  as  we  do,  Dutton,  you  would 
understand. 

It  isn't  a  matter  to  make  fun  of,  though,  and  I 
wouldn't  have  you  think  I  do.  It's  an  awful  fact, 
and  a  solemn  retribution.  There  is  such  a  thing  as 
a  vacuum  in  heart,  or  brain,  or  life,  by  which  the 
surrounding  atmosphere  has  to  press  in  with  fifteen 
uncompensated  pounds  to  the  inch.  And  that  is 
the  way  the  burden  of  everybody's  else  affairs  comes 
down  at  last  upon  the  Sharpes. 
10 


146  ZERUB    TIIROOP'S   EXPERIMENT. 

That  couldn't  have  been  in  Dante ;  could  it, 
Dutton  dear? 

But  if  Dante  had  come  after  Kepler  and  Newton 
—  and  a  few  other  folks  —  I  guess  it  would  have 
been. 


UCSB  LIBRARY 


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